


if i go on with you (by my side)

by avalanches



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Immortal God!Johnny, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mortal!Doyoung, Slow Burn, doyoung just reincarnates again and again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:30:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26563642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avalanches/pseuds/avalanches
Summary: Every single life Doyoung has lived, he falls in love. Every life, he has someone to love him. He meets them with the memories of his past life embedded in his head, falls for different individuals in every life that he is born into. It doesn't matter if they are all different; he remembers all of them, all the love and the sex and the feelings seared permanently into his memories.Time ticks on, the world goes through two wars, swords turn into guns and tanks, and Doyoung falls in love again and again with different lovers. The only constant in the endless cycle of reincarnation? Youngho.Youngho. His immortal godly betrothed.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 36
Kudos: 248





	if i go on with you (by my side)

**Author's Note:**

> i initially was gonna post this much later but with all the hype, and the excitement, i just decided you know what, fuck it. so here it is. to the original prompter to submitted this to the deleted archive, i hope you find this satisfactory, and that you enjoy this fic, even if it is ridiculously long. 
> 
> this started with an outline but turned into a monster and well :D i hope you will make it through this ridiculous wordcount 
> 
> _(special shoutout to vic for reading this when it was barely done, to adri for sending me doggo pictures for emotional support; i could not have written this without the two of you)_
> 
> title from [the way it was by the killers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8w-wlQsEJs)
> 
> as usual, not beta read, you know the drill, any mistakes will be fixed in the future

Kim Doyoung is fourteen when he is told that he is betrothed.

He hadn’t seen that coming, having thought that he would spend the rest of his life being a priest at the temple of Athena. He had no ambitions to get married ever, had no interest in girls (of course he wasn’t going to tell his mother that), and _maybe_ he was just a tad infatuated with the assistant head priest of the temple.

“Doyoung, today’s your last day at the temple.”

He looks up at his mother from the scrolls that he’s been studying, eyes wide, dread building in his chest. Had they found the drawings of the very fit, very naked men under his pallet? Or had they decided to ship him off to train for the army instead despite his many protests of preferring scholarly interests over physical pursuits? Either way, Doyoung doesn’t like the tone his mother is using with him, doesn’t like the strange look on her face. He might be fourteen, all skinny limbs and skin too pale from not being out in the sun too much, but he _knows_ when his mother is not telling him something.

“Why?” He asks when they are at home, his unopened trunk carrying his measly belongings from the temple in between him and his mother. Her fists are balled into the thin material of his dress, her eyes locked on his trunk and deliberately avoiding his eyes. His father chooses that exact moment to walk in and that same look is in his eyes. Doyoung doesn’t like that.

“I need you to listen to me, Doyoung-ah.”

“Is this because I like boys?” He didn't mean to blurt out that question. If Doyoung had a choice, he would choose a different way to come out, maybe with better words and less confusion in him. At that point, he is _pretty sure_ that he likes boys, _a lot_.

His mom looks up at him, absolutely dismayed, and Doyoung’s heart drops.

“No, baby, no,” she reaches for his hands, holds them tightly in her spindly ones. “We don’t care that you like boys, not at all. But we have to tell you something, baby, and honestly, it’s just as hard for us as it is going to be for you.”

His mother’s eyes are shining with tears, his father’s lips are tightly pressed together, and Doyoung realises that in this moment that they are really upset. Whatever they are going to tell him, it clearly doesn’t make them feel good either, and it’s making _him_ upset.

His mother takes a deep breath, clutches his hands even tighter and then she cries.

-

Human brides to gods are not uncommon, not in Doyoung’s village. He remembers Sicheng, his childhood friend, immediately bestowed with the label of an immortal’s betrothed by the time he was four. Sicheng didn’t even get to decide if he likes boys or girls; instead, he just had to accept that he was going to marry a man the moment he turned sixteen.

Doyoung hates the word. _Bride_. It makes him seem like a simpering young damsel with rosy cheeks and red wet lips, trembling in the ropes that tied them to the masts of ships as they were offered as sacrifices to soothe the rage of the gods. He isn’t anything like that; he isn’t buff or fit like his best friend Taeil who trains with the soldiers, packed with sinewy muscle littered with scars here and there. But, he is far from a damsel in distress; Doyoung knows how to defend himself with his words, with the carefully concealed dagger tucked into his sleeve, with his knowledge of herbs that grew around the village and at the edge of the woods. He’s not defenseless, he’s far from that. He doesn’t need someone to save him from his predetermined fate of being the betrothed of a god and sweep him off his feet into a whirlwind romance like the crumpled novels hidden amongst his study scrolls.

In this moment, Doyoung wants someone to do that, damsel in distress stereotype be damned. He wants to run away from this nightmare, erase the crying faces of his parents and his brother’s stony face that was darker from a thunderstorm from his memories. He doesn’t know what he had done to get the attention of one of the immortal tyrants that ripped apart mortal lives on a whim and transformed sunny skies into thunderstorms that flooded the fields with a snap of their fingers. He just wants a normal life, maybe becoming a healer in the temple of Athena while pining after Priest Changmin with his snarky comments and his angelic singing voice. Not this, not all of this.

Not being the betrothed to the God of War.

Doyoung picks at some elderflowers and yarrows, gently gathering some of them into his basket. He might be able to continue studying at the temple anymore, but he could put some of his knowledge to good use in the village as an emergency healer. He still has a few years until his supposed “marriage”, he could do some other things for the other villagers until he was taken away to wherever the god wanted him to be.

There is a crackle, and the daisy he had been reaching for burns up in a wisp of smoke.

Doyoung feels the presence of the immortal before he sees him. He inhales deeply, straightens his back, and prepares to look at the god in the eye without flinching.

“So, you’re Kim Doyoung.”

The man in front of him is tall and tanned, black fabric stretched tight over broad shoulders and an extremely muscular chest (the kind that he likes, his mind supplies helpfully), leading down to long legs wrapped in the same black fabric that covers his chest. He smells of smoke and fire, dark brown eyes intense and locked on Doyoung, and the ground that he is standing on is charred in a neat little ring around his feet. The heat, anger, and violence is rolling off his very being in waves, wrapping themselves around Doyoung’s throat and threatening to squeeze the life out of him any second. He’s dangerous, Doyoung knows that very well.

Doyoung decides to tempt fate for a bit that day.

He straightens up, lifts his eyes to meet the god’s. The immortal has dark brown eyes, electricity and fire burning behind burnt wood and cracked clay, and Doyoung tamps down the shudder that snakes under his skin as he stands his ground.

“Yes, that is my name. And you are the god who requested for a human bride, I assume.”

The god looks him up and down for a bit, lips pressed tightly together. There is a scar running down the length of the left side of his face, cutting across his eye and skimming across the high curve of his cheekbone. _He’s attractive_ , Doyoung’s brain supplies unhelpfully. Of course he’s attractive, he’s a fucking _god_. Both men and women alike would trip over their feet to sleep with him, and yet all Doyoung wants to do is spit in his face and tell him to take this stupid marriage pact thing back so that he can go back to the temple and continue studying and pining after Changmin in the dark of the night.

“I didn’t request for a fucking bride,” the god scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest. They are littered with various scars, some more obvious than others, and Doyoung cringes internally at the amount of violence this immortal being had probably provoked, inflicted, and even partaken in. Instead, he tips his head up and stares the taller down, fingers clenching onto the handle of his basket, an anchor onto reality.

“Well, I think you’re mistaken, really. If you didn’t, please explain why I am standing here in front of you instead of being at the Temple continuing my education to be a herbalist or a healer. Tell me then, why am you in front of me, looking at me with such distaste like you're not the one who specifically _requested_ me, like you're not the one who made my mother cry because she felt like she failed me when she had to come and collect me from the temple.

The look on the god’s face is one of annoyance that grows darker with Doyoung’s words. “That’s because I _really_ wasn’t the one who asked for a fucking _bride_.”

Doyoung scoffs. “Please, all you immortals know is how to evade responsibility. You throw tantrums and fight with each other and it involves the weather and the sea and the animals and who are the ones who really suffer? It’s us, the mortals, with the lack of food and drinking water and ways to maintain our livelihoods. And what do you know to say? _I’m not the one_? Oh, _please_.”

“I really _wasn’t_.”

Doyoung blinks up at the immortal, his skin crawling from the power and the anger that simply radiates off the other. It is taking all of his will right now to just stand in the same spot and not just crumple under the god’s intimidating existence, destruction and anger practically rolling off the scarred, muscular body in front of him. Maybe, Doyoung thinks, if he wasn’t so angry because of his stupid fate of being a god’s bride, or if he wasn’t so stupidly pining after Changmin, _maybe_ he would have found the god _somewhat_ attractive.

It’s no one’s fault; Doyoung _is_ gay, and the immortal _might_ just be kind of his type.

He holds onto his basket tighter. “Explain.”

The god clicks his tongue, gives Doyoung another look. “There is nothing to explain.”

Doyoung has had enough. He turns his back to the immortal, finally giving into the urge to run away that had been prickling in his stomach ever since the daisy was burnt into nothingness with the appearance of the god. But Doyoung is a prideful person, and he refuses to crumble under the heat, refuses to submit to a fate that he did not choose, refuses to submit to a selfish immortal that revels in violence and destruction and feeds off the bloodthirst and greed of humans who wanted to conquer land and women.

“Good day then, God of War.”

“Youngho.”

He blinks, nearly looks back. The god is still there, the power of his immortal aura has been toned down just a bit, but it still crackles on Doyoung’s back, sends prickles down his spine and fuels the growing instinct of fight-or-flight in his stomach. Doyoung might be proud and smart, but he isn’t reckless, and he certainly isn’t going to pick a fight with the God of War of all the fucking immortals that chose to lounge around and fuck with the humans they so dearly loved to toy with.

“Excuse me?”

“My name is Youngho. Or at least I choose to go by that. It’s the name I chose for myself.”

Doyoung laughs, more of a bark than anything. He takes one step forward, just as a test, and when he confirms that he is indeed still alive he just turns his head back to look at the god one last time. The immortal hasn’t moved, standing right in the middle of the perfect charred circle in the middle of flowers and grass at the edge of the forest.

“See you at the ceremony then, Youngho.”

He turns and walks away, doesn’t bother to look back to see the exact moment the god vanishes in smoke and fire, the smell of burnt grass and wood lingering behind. Doyoung walks quickly all the way to his family cottage, pointedly ignores his brother’s curious look directed in his direction and goes straight to the small yard behind the house to sort out the herbs and flowers he had picked.

The daisies, elderflowers and yarrow are slightly scorched, and the smell of fire and smoke still lingers. Doyoung sighs and starts sorting out the stalks that are still usable, deliberately ignoring how his brother is standing over him as he is hunched over the ground.

“Why do you smell like that?”

Doyoung scoffs and gathers the herbs that are relatively unscathed into his basket before throwing the scorched ones onto the waste pile. “No reason, just that my beloved betrothed decided to pay me a visit. That’s all.”

Donghyun frowns at that. “You’re not getting married until next year. Gods don’t usually appear to their mortal brides until the day they are supposedly wed. And well, that day isn’t until like, I don’t know, a year later?”

“Who knows,” Doyoung sighs, “I don’t even want to get married.”

Donghyun picks out a daisy from his basket, tucks it behind his ear. He thumbs at the nape of Doyoung’s neck, a warm weight soothing the tension out from the younger’s neck, a silent sign of assurance to Doyoung that he didn’t like this just as much.

“I know.” And those words are enough for Doyoung.

-

It is the day, and Doyoung has made up his mind.

He stands stiffly in front of the priest from the Temple of Ares, dressed in all white with a golden circlet in his hair with a small sprig of lilies clutched in his hands. Around his right wrist is a blue ribbon tied in a perfect bow, stained with his mother’s tears as she told him that she wanted to give him something from home one last time. Behind him, Donghyun and his father’s faces are stony and devoid of any emotions, while his mother is trying very hard to keep a stiff upper lip but failing at it. His father grabs her hands, which had been continuously wrung out throughout the ceremony, and tucks her under his arm. Donghyun’s hand is clenched tight around his fiance’s, who is watching the entire thing with wide eyes while half-hiding behind his back. The ceremony is taking place on a cliff overlooking the Northern Sea, a body of water that had been bestowed onto the God of War by his uncle, the God of the Seas, back then when his worshippers built their first temple in Doyoung’s village. A fitting place for the marriage of a bride from the village to said God of War, the priests had said. Doyoung hadn’t bothered to object.

The priest chants something, throws some petals and powders in the air, and it settles around Doyoung and catches in his hair. He isn’t listening; his mind is just fixated on the plan that he had carefully planned two weeks before this. He wants it to go through, and if everything went as he predicted, it would all go according to plan.

Just _maybe_ , Doyoung would have a choice in his life for once.

The small audience for this pathetic excuse of a wedding retreats to the bottom of the cliff, and Doyoung can tell that his mom really doesn’t want to leave. He locks eyes with her, nods stiffly to convey that he’s alright, and watches as his father leads her away. He gets a nod in return from his father and from Donghyun, and mouths a message to Donghyun’s fiance to take care of him. Behind them, Doyoung can see his friends gathered at the edge of the crowd, faces pinched in worry, Sicheng grasping at Taeil’s hands as the older boy carefully makes sure that they don’t fall behind. Sicheng himself isn’t due for his marriage until next year, and Doyoung feels the guilt pooling in his stomach as he watches them leave. He had promised to attend Sicheng’s own ceremony, reassuring him repeatedly that unlike his own conditions, the God of the Sun isn’t actually that bad as an immortal betrothed.

If Doyoung’s plan plays out as he thinks it will, he will break his promise to Sicheng.

The last part of the ceremony involves only Doyoung, not even the priests of Ares. Gods don’t just appear in their raw human-body forms to mortals after all; they usually send signs through animals that talk, or maybe a tree set on fire, or maybe some dancing water in the fountains. They only appear to their betrotheds in that form, and Doyoung already knows that; this god in question had already appeared to him last year after all.

No one really knows what happens during this part of the ceremony. From the scrolls that Doyoung remembers reading in the temple, usually the god appears, the newly weds are expected to make love, or consummate the marriage (he nearly threw up reading _that_ part), and then the God gives some sign for the mortals to come back before he takes his leave. Sometimes, the bride is allowed to stay and a separate hut is prepared for them. Other times, the god just whisks them away and the village never sees them ever again.

He steps closer to the edge of the cliff, watches the white foamy waves hurl themselves at the jagged edges worn away by the inflicted wear and tear. The sky is clear and bright, but there is a wind swirling around, almost violent in the way that it rips through his hair and makes his eyes sting. A god is coming after all.

Doyoung’s heart, already thrumming at an uneven staccato due to his nerves singing at the thought of his plan succeeding, picks up even more as the sky above him turns a milky grey and the smell of fire and smoke surrounds him. There is a sharp crackle that snaps through the white noise of the waves, and Doyoung doesn’t have to turn back to look. He knows.

The God of War is here for his bride.

“Kim Doyoung.”

Doyoung turns around slowly, his arms falling to his side, the lilies clutched loosely in his right hand. “Hello, Youngho.”

The god blinks back at him, smoke rising off his very being in little wisps. “Oh, you remembered.”

Doyoung smiles carefully at him, his heartbeat loud in his ears. Youngho is far enough from him, just like he planned. The waves crash against the cliffs, and Doyoung thinks that the sound is actually comforting, calming his nerves that are rattling under his skin. He hopes the immortal doesn’t notice; they are just powerful, it’s not like they are psychic. They don’t hear wishes unless they are verbally expressed and said out loud.

“It’s better for me that way. I don’t really want to call you ‘god’, or ‘Ares’. Both are equally bad to me. Reminds me that I didn’t choose to be wedded to an immortal god.”

Youngho blinks again at him. He is awfully attractive in black, Doyoung thinks, his simple ripped garments fitted with pieces of armour around his shoulders and chest. He is wearing a helmet too, and there are accents of gold and red on his outfit. His arms are toned, chiseled muscles, and Doyoung watches them move as the god takes off his helmet and shakes out his dark hair, entranced by how they flex with each movement. Bless his gay thirsty self who had a thing for toned muscles and broad physiques, and bless Youngho who looked like he had walked out of Doyoung’s wet dreams and gay fantasies.

Not a bad sight, Doyoung thinks. Not a bad sight at all.

Youngho tucks his helmet under one arm, watches Doyoung carefully. “So, turns out you are okay with being married off to a god?”

Doyoung laughs dryly. “And you? Finally dug out the last bits of your conscience that you did indeed use your power over the mortals to coerce them into giving you a bride?”

Youngho scoffs, and the smell of smoke intensifies. It wraps around Doyoung’s throat, threatens to choke him, like a leash tightening around the neck of a pet.

“I didn’t ask for this.”

Doyoung isn’t moved. “But you’re okay with this. With a human bride. With a male bride.”

Youngho doesn’t answer. He watches Doyoung, takes in the golden circlet nestled amongst dark curls, white material wrapping gently around pale thin wrists, a skinny chest, and rustling around his lean thighs. Doyoung knows that he is halfway between a boy and a man, that he hasn’t filled out like Donghyun had last year, that he hasn’t broadened or shot up, that he is a gangly boy with limbs that were too long and measurements that didn’t fit any clothes properly. He knows that he looks like someone to be underestimated, someone who can’t stand firmly against the violent wind howling in his ears and throwing his hair off his forehead.

Doyoung knows he looks weak, and he hates that people look at him like _that_ , but right now it works for him. It works for his plan.

“Tell me, Youngho. Do you really want a human bride?”

Youngho’s eyes shoot up to meet his again. A faint ray of the sun escapes from behind the dark clouds that have gathered in the God of War’s presence, reflecting faintly off the metal of the armour plates that he is wearing. Doyoung thinks faintly, at the back of his mind, that the god looks so _handsome_ like this: disheveled, scarred, but sloppily put together in an attempt for the formality of this wedding despite not appearing to any one but his supposed bride. He looks more like a confused young man fresh from military training, eager to impress and please his intended love, less like a powerful god that wrecks havoc and encourages mortals to kill each other out of greed for land and women.

Doyoung’s heart almost hurts, but he raises his chin and looks at Youngho dead in his eye. The god doesn’t answer his question, and Doyoung _almost_ feels bad for what he is about to do.

He pulls his lilies to his chest, never breaks eye contact as he steps backward off the cliff, lets the loud waves fill up his ears and pull him into the darkness.

-

Doyoung thinks Queen Victoria’s reign is both a blessed and a cursed time to live in.

He is under no pressure to get married, being the second child and all despite the suitors that swarm him during balls. He spends his days watching Oscar Wilde and George Benard Shaw plays at the theatre, travels to France during the weekends to peruse the newest works of Odelion Redon and Georges Seurat. He drinks in the salons, plucks cigarettes out of the wealthy patrons’ mouths, and lets them stroke his thigh under the table. Doyoung is born into a wealthy upper class family close to the royals, dresses in the finest imported silks and velvets since young, and has acquired a taste for the finest things only. He collects Rousseau paintings, the most exotic china sets, the most unique jewels and spices found in the Oriental lands, and has the latest copies of Dickens’ works hand-delivered to his table even before it is published in the newspapers.

It is an open secret that Doyoung is homosexual, with his aggressive support and funding Wilde and Shaw’s works, and also that he has absolutely no intentions of getting betrothed to a woman. Doyoung is obsessed with gaining knowledge from books and affection from men, both equally so. On the days that he does not want to read or watch a play or peruse art, he seeks out comfort in the dingy bars tucked away in the corner of the dull Victorian streets.

It is, however, not an open secret that when it comes to men, Doyoung’s taste is for something less polished, less refined.

He meets Nakamoto Yuta in a pub just off the turn of Picadilly Street, and he unravels under the other’s rough palms, coarse from building steam engines and scarred from the many accidents at work in the factories. The scars are littered across Yuta’s arms and torso, silver in the moonlight as he looks down at Doyoung pressed into his cheap mattress in his tiny dorm room. Yuta isn’t married, he had spent too much of his life working, starting from being a chimney sweep at the age of seven because his family simply did not have enough food to eat. His clothes are constantly gray from all the soot and dirt that had sunk into the fabric, and Yuta simply did not have the time to do laundry. He works and works tirelessly to send money to his family, who saves it up to get clothes for his sisters in the hopes that they will marry into someone from Doyoung’s social circle so that his parents don’t have to work anymore.

Doyoung doesn’t care about that. He pulls Yuta close, kisses him on the mouth, and lets Yuta fuck him into the mattress and whisper dirty words into his pale skin. He lets Yuta smear grime and dirt onto him, grasps at Yuta’s shoulders and screams his pleasure into Yuta’s neck as the other man works his cock and mouths at his neck sloppily. Yuta smiles at him when he turns up on his doorstep again with fresh clothes, money hidden in the pockets, and takes him to bed again. He lets Doyoung kiss his scars, nuzzle at his palm, and he holds Doyoung like he is something precious, like Doyoung is his world.

Doyoung falls for Yuta easily. He has all the riches in the world at his fingertips, but Yuta makes him feel desired, loved, and Doyoung craves for him like how he craves to own Van Gogh’s _Bedroom in Arles_ so that he can stare at it and imagine a fantasy where they share a bed in an apartment too small and Doyoung doesn’t have to fend off suitors and Yuta doesn’t have to work fifty hours in a row at the factory. An impossible fantasy, because Gaugain had told him scathingly that Van Gogh’s art just isn’t worth _that_ much and refuses to let him meet the other artist; impossible, because Yuta is born in a different world of cheap beer and stale cigarettes, and Doyoung doesn’t fit in with his expensive silk cravats and taste for fine wine and tobacco.

He wakes up one night when he is alone in his room at the manor. It is suddenly too cold, the wind is suddenly too strong, and there is the smell of smoke and fire in the air. He turns around, but there is no one at the window, or anywhere in his room for that matter. He climbs back into bed, falls asleep with the ghost of Yuta’s gentle touch on his waist and the other man’s faint scent of apples mixed with coal lingering in his mind.

He wakes up to the morning sun. There is a figure seated on the ledge of his window.

“You’re a cruel man, Kim Doyoung.”

Doyoung rolls his eyes, turns back over onto his side. “Says the god who took away the future of a young hopeful boy by choosing him as his betrothed when he was barely fourteen.”

He can feel Youngho’s presence in his room, he doesn’t need the smell of smoke and fire to tell him who it is. The god’s presence is still strong, his power hasn’t waned a single bit, but he is dressed to fit in with the times. Youngho sighs, and Doyoung ignores him, burrows his head into where Yuta’s worn scarf is tucked around his pillow and breathes in apples and coal.

“Doyoung, you know that you can’t marry him.”

“That’s not my name.”

He doesn’t bother telling Youngho his name in this life; not like he wants the immortal to know. Youngho doesn’t press him, but he hears the impatient click of the god’s tongue, loud and sharp in Doyoung’s empty room.

Doyoung sits up in his bed, clutching the scarf in his hands, and snaps his head around to look at his unwanted visitor. The god is dressed in an expensive dark red suit, his hair is brown, and styled to part gently in the middle. He is seated on the ledge of Doyoung’s window, white dress shirt pressed crisply, all clean lines and sharp angles unlike Yuta, who wore clothes too big for him and was narrow and bony due to malnutrition in his childhood.

“Why are you here?” He ignores Youngho’s statement, slides out from under his sheets and goes to his wardrobe, uncaring of his nakedness in the god’s presence. The immortal doesn’t seem unfazed either, not outwardly, but Doyoung can tell by the sudden shift in the power humming off the walls of his room that he is at least a _little_ startled by Doyoung’s lack of shame.

Youngho doesn’t move, but Doyoung feels his eyes on him. “Why are _you_ here and not at Nakamoto’s place?”

Doyoung pulls on a shirt and and boxers, eyes wandering over the variety of colours in his wardrobe. He selects a navy suit, the colour conservative enough for his family, but the tight cut is bold enough for his taste. He takes his time, hands sliding over the expensive fabric of his suit, deliberately ignoring the god perched on his windowsill.

“You belong in different worlds, you and Nakamoto.”

It’s not anything Doyoung hasn’t heard before; Ten tells him the same things ( _at least sleep with someone from your social class, you ass. Baron Qian? Perhaps?_ ) but gross, like he would ever sleep with someone that was _Ten’s_ type. Ten watches him stumble into the parlour for tea with a stupid smile on his face, bruises from Yuta’s lips and hands hidden beneath his suit that had been hastily straighted out, crumpled in some rather conspicuous places; but Ten just holds his tongue and continues flirting with Baron Qian Kun after handing Doyoung a cup of his favourite earl grey tea. Doyoung appreciates the discretion, sips his tea dreamily while half-listening to the conversation at the table, half-indulging in fantasies where he could kiss Yuta all he wanted and not let the other man go off to work.

He pulls his pants up his legs and checks the time. He has twenty minutes before breakfast, that’s enough. “Well, technically we belong in different worlds too, since I’m human and you are, well,” he gestures in Youngho’s direction, “immortal?”

Doyoung feels Youngho’s irritation rather than sees it, the burnt smell in his room rising to dangerous levels and the heat prickling on the back of his neck. He straightens his collar, walks over to the dresser to pick out a pair of cufflinks and eyes the collection of cravats and ties hung on the side. Youngho hasn’t moved an inch, and Doyoung doesn’t care about how he is possibly visible from the street and across the road. He already has an unspoken reputation of being a whore ( _a slut for cock, the ladies whisper behind their silk handkerchiefs, but Doyoung just ignores them_ ), so he doesn’t really care how it goes down or what rumours will spread when someone sees the back of a very attractive male in the bedroom of Lord Kim’s younger son. He has always been less important than his elder brother anyways, the responsible elder son, the heir that is not gay and had married a woman of equal standing. He is the one who shakes hands at the balls and the parties, while Doyoung tries to sneak drinks under the watchful eye of his mother and flirts with other young lords to make them blush and sputter into their glasses of champagne.

“Yeah, but apparently you’re my bride. Last time I checked, you were betrothed to me since the last century. Not Nakamoto Yuta.”

“Oh since when did you care so much,” Doyoung hisses, fastening his cufflinks with the angry efficiency of someone who is used to sneaking out in the mornings when the sun isn’t up and London is still blanketed in an inky night. “You haven’t bothered me for like the twenty years I have lived in this lifetime, but suddenly you turn up and claim me as your fucking bride? God, you’re such a fucking hypocrite, Ares.”

Youngho flinches at his words, smoke and fire shrinking and cowering under Doyoung’s voice, and Doyoung can’t help the swell of pride that rises in his chest. He checks his reflection in the mirror, reaches for the hair product sitting on the desk, and starts to style his locks. He makes ignoring Youngho obvious with the way that he refuses to look at the immortal, with his efficiency of dressing and primping himself into the image that he knew both men and women were weak for. Using Youngho’s god name, given to him by a father he detests and the humans that worship him is a low blow, but Doyoung refuses to let the god claim him as his fucking _bride_. Not when he couldn’t explain his words to Doyoung back then when there were no steam engines and the world was not blanketed in soot and there was no such thing as money or capitalism.

God, he still hates that word. _Bride_.

“Don’t call me that,” Youngho’s voice is tired, and Doyoung finally turns around to look at him. Against the brightening sun outside his window, Youngho looks tired, the scar on his face prominent in the light that is flooding Doyoung’s bedroom and framing him in a yellow halo. In this moment, Doyoung thinks that the god looks almost _human_ , tired of living forever, tired of being there to oversee the conflicts and bloodshed instigated by stupid mortals who didn’t care for their lives and threw them away recklessly just like that.

“Don’t call me your bride then.” Doyoung looks away, thinks about Yuta and his coarse bony hands, thinks about how his chapped lips feel on Doyoung’s own, thinks about how the other man makes his heart burst with just the way he looks at Doyoung.

Youngho scoffs, and suddenly he’s walking towards Doyoung. He picks a blue ribbon off the collection of accessories that Doyoung has been staring down for the last few minutes, and gently loops it around Doyoung’s upturned collar. Doyoung watches, unable to look away from Youngho’s hands, littered with scars and scrapes as the god ties the ribbon into an impeccable bow. He sees the particularly big one, with jagged edges and upraised skin, slicing through Youngho’s right palm and curving all the way to the middle of the back of his hand.

Doyoung wonders idly why Youngho has so many scars; he’s immortal, right? Don’t they all heal their own wounds and maintain their youthful appearance with ambrosia and whatever essence humanity has to offer?

“How did you get that?” He catches Youngho’s hand just before the god lets go of his ribbon, running a thumb gently over the scar. Yuta has many scars too, from working at the factory, from accidentally mismanaging machinery and slipping and falling on platforms, but they are all small and slight. Youngho’s scar is big, and it looks deep, looks like it comes with an untold story that Doyoung wanted to unravel for some reason he could not explain.

Youngho pulls his hand away, and the smell of smoke and fire thins rapidly as he steps away from Doyoung, an unreadable expression on his face. Doyoung frowns.

“You’re going to be late,” he nods at the mirror in front of Doyoung. “Check your reflection, turn down your collar. I don’t think your mother will like it if you’re late for your carriage that’s going to take you to Paris.”

Doyoung doesn’t question how Youngho knows about Paris. He’s pretty sure that Youngho also knows about his lie to his parents about how his trip is ten days when it actually is only for a week. Yuta has the weekend off for once, and Doyoung wants to spend it breathing his scent in his cheap bed sheets, wants Yuta to fuck him so hard into his poor excuse of a mattress until he’s stupid and doesn’t know anything except Yuta’s name and his cock. He turns around to face the mirror, fixes his collar, and shakes his head one last time before heading towards his bedroom door.

Youngho hands him his packed suitcase, and he just stands there with his hand on the doorknob watching the god for a bit. There is a reason Youngho has just appeared to him after twenty years of not doing so in this lifetime, he knows. Gods don’t just appear amongst humans like that, even to their betrothed which have been promised to them centuries ago. Doyoung looks at Youngho properly, eyes tracing the scar on his face, sliding along the sharp bold planes of Youngho’s shoulders down to his calloused hands covered in scars, ending at the expensive dress shoes that the god is wearing on his feet. Youngho is still breathtakingly handsome, beautiful even, despite his marred skin and discolored face, and if it isn’t for the smoke and fire that fills the room and threatens to choke him, Doyoung would have thought that it was a dream that he has such a handsome man standing in his bedroom that _isn’t_ Yuta.

 _Fuck someone from your social class, stupid_. Ten’s voice echoes in his ears, and Doyoung wonders if Youngho would be considered as someone from the same class as him, maybe higher up even? Youngho radiates power just with standing, narrow eyes steely and fixed on Doyoung, clouded with emotions that he can’t read.

For a moment, Doyoung _believes_ that maybe, just _maybe_ , Youngho might be a man worthy of his attention and maybe his affections. But Youngho is a god, not a man, and Doyoung was not the one who had decided to willingly have his previous, his current, and his future lives tied to being betrothed to a god that would not die no matter how much his body was split apart and how much of his ichor blood was spilled. Doyoung knows he looks somewhat the same every single lifetime he is born into, a side effect of having your soul binded as a mate to a god, but Youngho is different.

Youngho is timeless. He stands against the violent unforgiving flow of time, lets it mark its passing onto his body in the form of scars and tears Youngho open every single time humanity rages against each other, fueled by greed and lust and all the ugly emotions that had flowed out of Pandora’s box the moment the lid had been opened. Above it all, Youngho withstands everything, unable to die even as humans throw themselves at each other and let blood of the innocents stain the streets and paths of the world.

“Penny for all the thoughts bouncing in your pretty little head?”

Doyoung’s head turns to look at the god, who had seated himself on Doyoung’s messy unmade bed. He picks up Yuta’s scarf left behind on the pillow and plays with it, the cheap cotton sliding in between his scar-ridden fingers. Doyoung huffs, walks forward to snatch it out from the god’s hands, cursing internally that he had forgotten to pack it just now.

There is a flash of fire and the scarf is gone in a wisp of smoke. Doyoung blinks, the image of the daisy he had been reaching for vanishing in the same way flashing before his eyes, and he glares at Youngho who just looks up at him blankly with zero emotions in his dark brown eyes.

“Oh, _fuck you_ , Youngho.”

Youngho doesn’t answer, just spreads his hands behind him on Doyoung’s bed and leans backwards into them, tilts his head back with his eyes closed. For a moment, Doyoung just _stares_ at the way Youngho’s dark brown hair catches the yellow sunlight and glints, at the gentle curve of Youngho’s throat mostly hidden by the high collar of his dress shirt. There is a scar peeking out from the top of Youngho’s collar, jagged and obvious with the skin raised, and Doyoung is suddenly overcome with the urge to climb into Youngho’s lap and undo the cravat and the collar that is wrapped around the god’s throat. He wants to see the scar under there, see how far down it goes, and maybe press his lips to where it starts on Youngho’s throat and _oh_ , for a moment, Doyoung is absolutely _dying_ to discover what sounds the god makes if he does just _that_.

He shakes himself out of that reverie, forcing himself to think about Yuta, about Yuta who smells like apples and kisses Doyoung so hard but loves Doyoung so gently. Fuck this stupid soul bond thing or whatever he had with Youngho. Fuck being the intended mortal betrothed of a god that would never die and how the memories of his past life come rushing into his head on the exact second he turns fourteen. Doyoung hates being binded to this fate, all of it: being born into an upper middle class family and being preyed on by hungry parents desperate for their daughters to marry upwards for social mobility, for being born into a reign where liking men is a sin, for desiring Yuta who always strays out of his reach even though Doyoung calls his name so desperately and clings onto his hands like Yuta is his lifeline in a turbulent sea wrecked by a malevolent storm.

Most of all, Doyoung hates Youngho who has binded him to this fate. He hates that he remembers Youngho and their unwilling relationship, hates that Youngho appears to him uncaring of his life yet invasive in Doyoung’s affections for other men.

He hates him. Ares. God of War. Most of all, Youngho, who chose this name and him to be his bride, who locked him in this eternal cycle of being born with the same face and fate.

Doyoung presses his lips together and turns to the door again. “Since you are here, there must be a war of sorts coming.”

Youngho hums, eyes still closed. “Mhmm, perceptive as always. No wonder my sister’s worshippers loved you. You are always smarter than how you look.”

Doyoung doesn’t acknowledge the compliment. He reaches for the doorknob, but doesn’t twist it open. “Do you think I will survive until the war?”

Youngho sighs, the fire and smoke ripples out and gently caresses the back of Doyoung’s neck. Lingering, but not touching, not choking; gentle, almost. “It depends. You have always had the tendency to want to take charge of your own life.”

Doyoung can hear the maid’s footsteps approaching his bedroom. He looks back at Youngho, still seated on his bed, but the god’s eyes are open just a bit and he meets the same dark chocolate eyes unchanged since the last century. Youngho watches him, eyes searching his face with an emotion that Doyoung can’t pinpoint, and one corner of his mouth pulls up lazily.

He turns the doorknob, pulls his gaze away from god sitting on his bed. “See you then, Youngho. Maybe in this lifetime, maybe the next.”

There is a laugh as Doyoung slams his bedroom door behind him and smiles at the maid who takes his suitcase and leads him down to the parlour for breakfast.

-

_Five days later in Paris, Doyoung receives a telegram about how a factory in London had collapsed in a fire. None of the workers had survived and the entire building had been burnt down to a crisp. Machinery malfunction, the telegram reads, they had tried to put it but it had spread too quickly. Freak accident, the newspapers report; a mishap in a factory that was a little too old and a little too unsafe._

_Doyoung arrives back in England as planned, but he tells his carriage driver to take him to Dover instead. As he watches the white waves meet the white cliffs, pale with the chalk formed from algae, he thinks about how Yuta loves the sea. He had wanted to take Yuta here one day, watch the older man run about and let the wind caress his face as they shared scones and cakes on a picnic mat and kissed each other silly. Yuta would nap on his lap, finally sleeping well for once, while Doyoung reads Swineburns’ latest critique of Hardy’s poetry with one hand in his lover’s hair. It would have been perfect, Doyoung thinks._

_He steps closer to the edge of the cliff, admires the white that bleeds into the rich blue of the sea. The water is a lot calmer than that day he remembers, and there is no one but his driver waiting with his carriage a respectful distance away. Doyoung smiles, and waits, his right foot precariously perched on the edge of the cliff, waits for the telltale scent of smoke and fire to appear and jerk him away this time._

_The air still smells crisp and clean, untainted from the soot and smoke that pollutes London’s streets, flecks of saltwater catching in Doyoung’s hair as the wind throws it up from the sea._

_Doyoung smiles, closes his eyes and steps forward into the darkness again._

_Three days later, the front page of the papers announces Oscar Wilde’s arrest and trial, the playwright being charged for gross indecency with men. In a paragraph on the second page, Wilde expresses his undying gratitude for his late patron, one younger Lord Kim who had recently taken his own life at the White Cliffs of Dover, for his constant support and friendship._

-

Gods only appear to their betrothed in their human-body forms, Doyoung remembers, a vague bit of information that is retained in his mind even nearly two centuries after his first death. The language is different, humans no longer write on papyrus scrolls, and there are guns and fighter jets and tanks and chemical weapons now.

It _is_ a time of war, however, so he shouldn’t be so surprised when Youngho appears in front of him and his unit. Doyoung is a medic with the British Royal Air Force, England’s pride and joy of holding off the Luftwaffe that had absolutely annihilated the Soviet Union’s air forces. Youngho, on the other hand, is a fighter pilot with the Eighth Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces, sent by Roosevelt as reinforcements for a plan that involves bombing Dresden.

Youngho catches his eye as briefings and introductions are made, and a welcome is extended towards the American soldiers who have come to help their British brothers. Doyoung doesn’t care for such festivities; there are still the injured to be tended to, so he smiles tightly at the other soldiers and ducks back into the medic tent to see whose bandages need changing.

He’s halfway through tightening the bandages on a trench soldier’s thigh when he smells smoke and fire and feels the warm breath of another being on his neck. It is purely by training that Doyoung’s hands don’t shake or stutter as he keeps his eyes on the wound and works. He smiles at the soldier propped up on the bed, half-asleep from painkillers, and pats his thigh gently before straightening up and heading for his small cot tucked at the back of the medic quarters that were connected to the main hospital wing.

The smoke and fire follows him, gently curling around the nape of his neck and settling around his shoulders as he makes himself a cup of tea and turns around to look at the god. Youngho has made himself comfortable on Doyoung’s cot, in a similar position to when Doyoung last saw him back then before the years turned into 1900s and the Axis Powers turned into a force that threatened to upset the balance and peace of the world. He crosses his legs and looks up at Doyoung with a smile that barely curls his lips and barely opens his eyes.

“Bold, aren’t you? The U.S. forces have barely landed and you’re already inviting them into your cot. You work fast, Kim Doyoung.”

Doyoung rolls his eyes, doesn’t bother to offer Youngho any tea. “That’s not my name in this life. It’s Charlie now, that’s what they call me.”

“Charlie,” Youngho tests the name gingerly on his tongue, shakes his head. “I always thought you were a James. Your hair looks good though, brown instead of black.”

Doyoung much prefers his black hair, but he doesn’t tell Youngho that. He sips at his tea, watches as the god disguised as a man surveys the small room that he shares with the rest of the medical team before his eyes start searching the small drawer at the side of Doyoung’s bed.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, that you are here, right in the middle of the war,” Doyoung speaks, watching closely as Youngho seats himself closer to his drawer. He doesn’t bother telling the god to _not_ go through his belongings; Youngho will do what he likes, clearly. Oh how the mortals would flip if they knew that the almighty God of War, infamous for his temper and his inclination for violence, walks amongst them, and is a fighter pilot just like them. “What’s your rank anyways? Sergeant?”

“Oh you wound me, Doyoung-ie,” Youngho singsongs at him, pulling open Doyoung’s drawers now to rifle through his private collection of tea and letters from his family. Donghyun (or Calvin in this life) is serving with the Navy, still licking their wounds from when the Japanese had sunk the _HMS Repulse_ and _Prince of Wales_ in Southeast Asia so efficiently; his father is with Churchill’s government, probably convening now with Roosevelt to discuss the plan with Dresden happening in a few weeks. Somehow, Doyoung is glad that no matter what life he is in, his family never changes; he always has one older brother and his parents, and it gives him a familiarity that he takes comfort in.

“I’m just a simple Corporal, you know. I fly the fighter jets and drop bombs, I don’t sit behind a command centre and watch it all unfold like a coward.”

“Huh, I would have thought otherwise,” Doyoung doesn’t hold back with his words, idly watching as Youngho squints at the seals on his letters. “You seem like the kind to sit back and just watch everything. It would have been befitting of, oh, I don’t know, a God of War?”

Youngho laughs, the sound cold, dry and derisive in the empty medic quarters. “That’s not why I am the God of War, Doyoung,” he turns back to look at the English medic officer, his dark brown eyes glittering with malice and some bits of derangement, and Doyoung nearly doesn’t recognise him. He has never seen Youngho look like _that_. “I’m the God of War because I _relish_ in the violence, and I want to be at the _centre_ of it. I don’t want to oversee like my fucking father who just sits on his throne in the sky and watches the mortals throw bombs and fire bullets at each other. I want to _do_ it, I want to be _a part_ of it.”

Doyoung is frozen against the wall, his fingers shaking around the handle of his cup. This Youngho is not a Youngho that he knows, he realises; he has never met Youngho during the time of war before. Youngho has always been measured, put together, calm even for his supposed reputation. This god, sitting on his bed and going through his drawers for some goddamn reason, is closer to that reputation that has been passed around the worshippers of Ares back in his village nearly two centuries ago, recorded down in books that wrote of Greek heroes and the Gods that used them as chess pieces to wage wars against in each other. This Youngho is a little more insane, smells more strongly of smoke and fire and gunpowder, radiates the violence of war, relishes in the bloodshed that tears humanity apart.

“How is it? Living amongst humans?” he puts his mouth to his cup and sips, barely tasting the tea. “Are they as repulsive as you think they are?”

Youngho laughs again. “I don’t think humans are repulsive, Doyoung. I quite admire their motivation and their desire, their greed. Whatever drives them to fight with their lives on the line. Gods don’t have to do that, they just take whatever they want and deal with it later. Humans, mortals, meanwhile, will literally fight to the death for glory, for pride, for a nation. It’s honestly what makes them preferable to gods, which is why I am here amongst them and not just looking at this like it’s some play or a show.”

Huh, _that_ is different. Also, it is the longest thing that Youngho has probably ever said in one breath to Doyoung and this is the third life that he has met the god in. This Youngho is different to Doyoung, but Doyoung knows very well that unlike him, Youngho has never died and he is the same as the Youngho that Doyoung has met when he was barely fourteen two centuries ago, the same Youngho that Doyoung had left sitting on his bed about fifty years ago before he left to go to Paris. Youngho is still Youngho. God of War. Ares. Still the same. He’s not like Doyoung, who is born into a different body with a different name and a different hair colour every single time he dies.

Youngho flops against his pillows, eyes boring into Doyoung’s face, and Doyoung takes the opportunity to properly _look_ at Youngho in this life. His face is still sharp and angled, the scar running down one side of his face is still there, and he is still broad and muscled, the fighter pilot uniform fitting snugly on him and emphasising the delicious sharp lines that Doyoung is so weak for. He looks like a young, roguish American pilot spread out on Doyoung’s dull sheets, the walking image of temptation for men stuck with each other in this time of war miles away from their sweethearts and wives at home.

“So,” Youngho speaks again. He’s awfully talkative in this lifetime, for some reason. “Where’s your sweetheart in this life? Did Nakamoto Yuta reincarnate into your life this time?”

Doyoung scoffs, takes another aggressive gulp of his already lukewarm tea, hoping that it hides the way his heart stutters at Youngho’s words. “Why do you assume that your _bride_ has a sweetheart, huh? Maybe I just want to be single and be a good medic?”

“Liar,” Youngho is grinning at him, teeth all bared and eyes crinkled with mischief. “You’re so fucking _pretty_ , Doyoung-ie. Men just _can’t_ keep their hands and eyes off you, and you _know_ that. You know how men look at you, how their eyes follow you around. Like how that poor young soldier looked at you like you hold his heart when you patted his thigh after changing his bandages. You know _very well_ the power of your face _and_ your body, Kim Doyoung.”

Doyoung has nothing to say to that. Youngho is right, he knows the looks that the older soldiers send him whenever they convene for the briefings, sees the way the younger soldiers follow him eagerly whenever he comes to chastise them for being reckless on the battlefield. Doyoung knows that he’s beautiful, that he is coveted by a _lot_ of men in this period of war filled with tanks and bombs and guns. Perks of being the bride of an immortal god that is currently sitting on his cot and tormenting him or whatever, he thinks.

“That says nothing,” he replies simply, setting his cup down on the bedside drawer that Youngho had spent most of their conversation turning upside down. “I might be desired, I know that, but it doesn’t mean that I have a sweetheart or anything like that.”

Youngho throws his head back and laughs, the sound like splintered glass in Doyoung’s ears.

“What a fucking liar you are, Doyoung.”

“That’s not my name,” he replies, straightening up some things that Youngho hadn’t bothered to put back into place, fingertips gently brushing over his beloved worn copy of Hemingway’s _For Whom the Bells Toll_. “I’m Charlie now, to my comrades, to the soldiers I treat, to you and the rest of the loudmouthed noisy American troops standing around my camp.”

Youngho shakes his head, shoulders trembling from the remnants of his laughter.

“To me, you’ll always be Doyoung.”

“Who’s Doyoung?”

Doyoung’s head snaps up at the voice. Oh great, wow, the timing is just _perfect_.

“Jeffrey,” he smiles at the figure standing cautiously in the doorway of the medic quarters. “Nobody. Just some character that my friend was telling me about. Come on in.”

“Oh,” Jeffrey moves forward, and Doyoung’s heart jumps at how beautiful he looks in his dusty pilot suit with gunpowder streaked across his cheek. He reaches forward and rubs it off fondly, smiling as Jeffrey grins at him, his face so handsome and so young that it makes Doyoung’s chest squeeze. He looks at Youngho, sitting on Doyoung’s bed, and his face freezes.

“I’m Johnny, from the US Eighth Air Force,” the god stands up, easily towering over both of them, and sticks his hand out to Jeffrey. “Our families were old friends before mine moved to America in the early 1900s. I wasn’t expecting to see him again, so we were just catching up.”

“Hi, Johnny,” Jeffrey smiles at him, and Doyoung wants to hit Youngho or roll his eyes, but he can’t do either of them without the action being glaringly obvious, so he settles for just watching them shake hands instead. Youngho beams at Jeffrey, shakes his hand firmly, and Doyoung is tempted to just turn away and bang his head into the wall beside his bed.

“Charlie, dinner is starting soon, that’s why I was looking for you,” Jeffrey turns to him, that irresistible smile on his face, and Doyoung’s insides turn to mush. “I’ll see you there? Bring Johnny too, I’ll introduce him to the rest of the unit.”

Doyoung nods tightly. “Sure, see you at dinner.”

Jeffrey smiles at him, brushes his hand over Doyoung’s shoulder before beaming at Youngho and exiting the quarters. Doyoung makes sure that he’s gone before he turns around to stare at the god standing beside him, hands tucked loosely in the pockets of his uniform, the jovial smile completely gone from his face.

“At least he’s pretty,” Youngho comments, eyes searching Doyoung’s face, and Doyoung wants to scream at him and shove him out but that’s not exactly appropriate. They need the help of the American troops if they want to win this war. When the war is over and the Americans go home, Youngho will be gone when the war is done and dusted, and Doyoung can go on a vacation with Jeffrey in the countryside of Dorset, look over at the sea devoid of battleships and warships, and kiss the younger soldier silly, both of them out of uniform and free from war.

“I’ve always had taste,” Doyoung snaps, reaching for his abandoned cup on top of the drawer. “You just didn’t like Yuta.”

“I never said I liked _him_ ,” Youngho jerks his head towards the door that Jeffrey had stepped through. The noise grows louder outside, a sign that dinner was happening soon, and Doyoung had heard that there was some good food that the Americans had brought with them. He is kind of hungry, kind of annoyed that he has to _actually_ spend time with Youngho in this life, and he just wants to pretend like he doesn’t know this American soldier. Too late for that, Jeffrey knows now, and he can’t hide it; Youngho’s probably not going to let him hide it either.

“He’s pretty, but that’s about it,” Youngho shrugs, watches Doyoung clean his cup in the sink and throw away the teabag. “He’s also extremely whipped for you, but which man in this camp isn’t, hmm?”

“You, probably,” Doyoung bites back. If he can’t push Youngho out of the medic quarters, the god surely can’t call upon his powers and zap him out of existence. He dries his cup, wipes his hands on his uniform pants and looks back at the god, who had crossed his arms over his chest. Doyoung tries not to stare at how his muscles strain against the fabric, keeps his eyes pointedly on Youngho’s face which is carefully blank.

“Come on, let’s go to dinner. I’ll introduce you to the rest of my unit. Don’t make a scene.”

Youngho doesn’t move, and Doyoung can feel himself getting irritated. Immortal or not, God of War or not, Doyoung isn’t going to let him sit alone in the medic quarters. Sure, he might be an American ally, but Doyoung’s loyalty is to his country and he does not want some American snooping around in the place where they keep some of the sharpest instruments and the strongest medicine. He opens his mouth to tell Youngho off, to goad him into moving, but instead Youngho speaks first.

“You presume a lot of things about me, Doyoung,” Youngho stands up straight, strides past Doyoung, doesn’t look at him at all. He exits the bunker swiftly, leaving Doyoung alone in the medic quarters with nothing but the smell of fire and smoke lingering around him.

Doyoung stares at the empty hallway, anger rising in his throat at the way the god had just disregarded him. He is _so_ tempted to just shout after Youngho and make a scene in front of his unit and the Americans, but Doyoung knows better than to do that. He tugs his medic coat closer around him, takes several deep breaths to calm himself down before he steps outside the medical quarters for dinner.

Jeffrey spots him and waves him over, his handsome face stretched out in a wide smile, his bright eyes crinkled into crescents. Youngho is seated opposite him, his arm slung around one of his fellow Americans, and he doesn’t look at Doyoung as he laughs at a joke one of Jaehyun’s platoon mates is recounting. Doyoung slides into Jeffrey’s side, lets the pilot wrap one arm around his waist and tuck him into his side. He smiles blandly at some random things said in his direction, picks at the food in front of him, and tries to ignore how Youngho is blatantly not talking to him.

The god has never _not_ acknowledged Doyoung before. He might have been invasive, flitting in and out of Doyoung’s life (lives, his head corrects him) however he pleases, but he has never ignored Doyoung. It sits uncomfortably in Doyoung’s stomach, the feeling of being subjected to Youngho’s unconcealed disdain. He’s pretty sure that Youngho doesn’t hate him, but he isn’t sure if Youngho actually likes him either.

Oh, what the fuck. Since when has Doyoung been so conscious of Youngho’s approval and acknowledgement? He had deliberately taken his own life to run away from this immortal _twice_ , determined to commit wholly to the decision that he had made the day before he was supposedly wed forever to the God of War. Doyoung had let his mother tie the blue ribbon to his wrist, trying not to let his own tears fall as she wept profusely, hands shaking as she tried to make the perfect bow that sat over his pulse. He had told himself that he would _not_ be an immortal god’s bride, that he would refuse to submit to this fate regardless of how many lives he has to live through, that he would run away time and time again, that he would fall in love with another human by his own will and live a life, have a love of his own choosing.

Doyoung pushes away his food, his stomach churning with his many thoughts and the vivid memory of his first life. Jeffrey notices, and the hand softly stroking the curve of his waist tightens gently.

“Charlie, you feeling okay?” Jeffrey is handsome and kind and innocent, fighting a war believing that he is part of a group of heroes that would bring peace to the turbulent world that they live in. He is young, so naive, and he looks at Doyoung with stars in his eyes and a fierce desire to gain Doyoung’s approval and attention and hoard it all for himself.

Doyoung nods, turns his head to whisper to Jeffrey. He makes sure to deliberately brush his lips against the curve of the younger soldier’s ear, satisfied with the shudder that runs down Jeffrey’s back, obvious against his palm pressed there. He lingers for a bit, lets his breath fan over Jeffrey’s skin, watches as it reddens as blood rushes to the sensitive area there. Jeffrey is inexperienced with loving men and loving in general, despite his dashing looks and innocent charm, and Doyoung is absolutely _enamoured_.

He stands up, bids farewell to his friends and the American troops, making up an excuse on how he wants to get some sleep before his night shift. Jeffrey stands with him, just a respectful distance between them, his ears aflame and his fingers twitchy. He catches Youngho’s eye, just for a second, and the god’s face is frigid, fingers clenched right around his glass of rum. He just stares at Doyoung for a bit, lips set together in a straight line, before he turns around and jumps right back into the fray of the conversation that had started up again.

Doyoung tugs Jeffrey into the medic quarters, hurriedly locks the door behind the young fighter pilot before immediately beginning to work on the buttons of his uniform. Jeffrey pulls him into a kiss, sloppy and desperate, and Doyoung lets the younger man lick his mouth open as he pulls open his shirt. Jeffrey catches him by the waist, slots their bodies together, and moans into his mouth as Doyoung slides a hand over the tent in his pants, his hips stuttering into Doyoung’s.

He ends up on his back in Doyoung’s cot, golden hair fanned out like a halo against Doyoung’s pillows, Doyoung on his lap with their erections pressed together. Doyoung revels in this sight, slides his hands gently over Jeffrey’s nipples and there is a cruel satisfaction that rises in his chest and makes his cock twitch as the younger man whimpers and arches up into his touch. He leans down to kiss Jeffrey slowly, his chest squeezing tight as his lover, _his lover_ , holds his face tight and kisses Doyoung like he never wants to let him go.

Doyoung _knows_ that Jeffrey is head over heels in love with him. It is evident in the way his younger lover fucks him, equal parts desperation and tenderness; in the way his eyes shine with the need for approval as he works his mouth around Doyoung’s cock, eager for the medic officer to get his pleasure high; in the way that he wraps himself around Doyoung after they are both spent, lips tracing the marks that he had sucked into Doyoung’s neck, whispering promises into Doyoung’s skin to take him away to Dorset, to Paris, to Florence, after the war is all over. Promises to love Doyoung forever and to stay with him, to disown his homophobic parents and to ignore the countless letters and marriage proposals that lie unopened underneath his bunker.

Doyoung is giddy and enamoured, drunk on the overflowing, intense affection that Jeffrey loves him with. It isn’t anything like the one-sided pining he had for Changmin, nothing like the secret clandestine affairs he had with Yuta in the tiny room and the cheap mattress. What he has with Jeffrey is _real_ , he believes. They are in love.

Doyoung is hardly an optimistic person, but when he’s with Jeffrey, he _believes_ that they will _both_ survive this war, that they _will_ have the happy-ever-after they deserve. Love makes you believe in miracles, he thinks fondly, as he watches Jeffrey sleep beside him and leans down to kiss silk locks the colour of gold.

-

Youngho comes to him again after the war ends, smoke and fire announcing his presence behind Doyoung in Sicily. He’s dressed casually in jeans and a white t-shirt, a plain black bomber jacket slung over his shoulder, and he makes no move to come closer to where Doyoung is seated on the beach with a bottle of whiskey held loosely in his fingers.

He takes a swig of alcohol, feels it burn down his throat. “What?”

The god doesn’t move. Doyoung takes another mouthful of whiskey, wraps his jacket around his shoulders tighter. “If you’re here to gloat, fuck off.”

“I’m not here to gloat, Doyoung.” Wow, he hasn’t heard that name in _forever_. They hadn’t spoken to each other since that day where Youngho had left Doyoung standing alone beside his cot with nothing by the leftover scent of smoke and fire that follows war everywhere. Youngho had merely stuck with his American comrades, and Doyoung had pointedly sent his medic colleagues his way every single time he appeared in the medical tent. Youngho had barely looked at him, he had barely looked at Youngho, and now they are alone together in the middle of the night on a beach in Sicily while the air around them is still heavy with gunpowder and still smells a little too strongly of blood and iron.

“Don’t try to be a saint, Youngho,” he snaps, anger and exhaustion pooling in his stomach and tightening his chest. The metal of Jeffrey’s dog tags burn against the skin of his chest, right over his heart, and Doyoung almost laughs at how miserable he feels. There are no overwhelming emotions, no tears threatening to overflow; just numbness, dullness, and a melange of emotions that is a cold block that clogs his throat and is frozen around his heart.

Heartbreak isn’t anger or sorrow. It’s just a vague feeling of nothingness, of emptiness, of a permanent absence. There is no one to wait eagerly for a return, no face to look at again, just old promises left unfulfilled forever and endless possibilities and futures buried in a coffin ten feet underground.

_In loving memory of Jeffrey Jung. Beloved by family, cherished by friends. Corporal of the Royal Air Force Group No. 1, who gave his life and defended the skies for the victory of the nation in this war. Rest in peace, brave soldier._

Youngho takes a few steps closer. He squats down next to Doyoung, expensive dress shoes digging into the sand, eyes fixed on the sea ahead. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I’m sure you did, you fucking _god_ ,” Doyoung hisses, glaring at nothing in the darkness, trying to find the line where the skyline meets the sea, perhaps. “You probably made sure one of the rifles or some of the bullets hit his jet, or maybe you made sure that his jet would burst into flame the moment it crashed into the ground? I don’t fucking know what you did, but you could have done it, and I _know_ you did it.”

He’s tired, there is a numbness where his heart is, but he’s also so fucking _angry_ at Youngho. Said god turns around to look at him, dark brown fringe falling into chocolate eyes, and Doyoung wants to punch him in his horrid, handsome face, so hard that maybe the old scar over his eye splits open so that Youngho can suffer the same kind of hurt.

“I didn’t do anything, Doyoung.”

“Liar,” the word sounds good on Doyoung’s tongue, when it isn’t out of Youngho’s mouth and directed at him. “You spit all that crap about your father watching humans fight like it’s a television programme, but you are _not_ above meddling in human lives. I don’t know why you are so possessive over a bride you claim to _hate_ , but you got to fucking _stop_. First the factory with Yuta and now the plane with Jeffrey? Please, just do us both a favor and admit that you were the one who acted out in a stupid way because you are so fucking _possessive_ over a bride that refuses to submit to your tyrant egomanical god-self and didn’t trip over himself to throw himself at your fucking feet. All of this? For a bride that you don’t _want_.”

Maybe it’s the liquid courage, maybe it’s the heartbreak, but it’s a miracle that Doyoung doesn’t hurl out the contents of his stomach along with his words. He had been drinking on an empty stomach for a while, and while he has quite a tolerance, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s so upfront with his emotions because he’s _drunk_.

Youngho reaches out, pries the whiskey bottle from his fingers. “I didn’t cause the accidents. Not with the factory, not with the fighter jet. I don’t like meddling with human lives, Doyoung, I told you before. I have not done so, and I did not lie about that.”

Doyoung glares up at him, his vision blurry with the tears that had welled up during his outburst. “You _did_. If you don’t meddle with human lives, you would not have chosen a human bride.”

Youngho sighs, the soft sound barely audible over the crashing of the waves on the beach. He settles himself beside Doyoung on the sand, legs spread apart, heels in the sand, arms propped up on his knees with his bomber jacket crumpled in his lap. The soft moonlight hits his face, and Youngho looks so _young_ , like that time where he had looked at Doyoung in his apartment in London back then in the year of 1895, and Doyoung had thought he looked more human than god. He looks human now, weary of the war, tired of the impending politics, upset with the mass destruction that chemical weapons had inflicted. If Doyoung didn’t know that he is an immortal god who has never known the pain of dying, he’d just think that the Youngho seated beside him is just like him; a soldier weary of violence and the war, sitting in the dregs of a heartbreak.

“I didn’t choose you, Doyoung. I can’t tell you the details, some stupid _geis_ , not of my own choosing. It involved my sister and my mother, they are the only ones who can speak of it. But I can tell you, honestly, soldier to soldier, not god to human, that I did _not_ want you to be subjected to this fate of being reincarnated again and again for the purpose of being married to one of the most notorious gods in the recorded history of humankind.”

“I’m sorry, Doyoung,” Youngho is looking at him now. “I wanted to apologise back then at the ceremony, I wanted to apologise before you left for Paris, but I couldn’t. So, I’m apologising now. You don’t have to accept it, you don’t have to like me. But I need you to know that you weren’t the only one who didn’t have a choice in this whole setup of a marriage.”

Doyoung stares back at Youngho, speechless for once, a ball of emotions tightening in his stomach. An entire ball of threads so tangled up that he doesn’t know where to start unraveling, he doesn’t know how to begin. Youngho smiles at him softly, and reaches out a hand to gently wipe away the tears streaking down his cheeks. Doyoung doesn’t stop him, and Youngho doesn’t take his hand away after he’s done; Doyoung can see the same scar that had caught his attention back then, deep and ugly, cutting across Youngho’s palm and curving over the back of his hand, tanned from the sun and the war, as the god’s hand lingers over his face.

“A _geis_ ,” Doyoung swallows, unable to take his eyes off Youngho, gaze flitting between the scars on the god’s face and hand. “A taboo, huh, that prohibits certain actions, and the violation of said taboo will cause death? That shouldn’t be a problem for a god who cannot die, no?”

Youngho barks, the harsh sound that is supposed to pass for laughter grating on Doyoung’s ears. The god withdraws his hand, twists his fingers together before going back to staring out at the sea again. “Some things are worse than death, Kim Doyoung. You should know better than anyone else. You choose death over being married to a god. Willingly.”

He has a point, Doyoung supposes. He looks away to the sea again, away from Youngho, who is halfway between a god and a man, a little less of an asshole but nowhere someone normally decent. They watch the waters tumble onto the sand, gentler now, less angry, less loud.

“Tell me, Youngho. Do you hate me?”

Youngho hums, raises Doyoung’s bottle of whiskey to his lips and takes a long swig. “I don’t.”

Doyoung blinks. He reaches for his alcohol and Youngho willingly returns it. “But you don’t like the marriage set-up either. Aren’t you angry about being tied to some stupid insignificant mortal? One that runs off with other men and sleeps with them, falls in love with them, and isn’t afraid of hiding all of that. One that takes his own life because he refuses to just submit. Of all the mortals you could get as a bride, you got _me_. The worst lot of it all. One so defiant and so sinful and so antagonistic, any other god would have just sent them to hell the first time. Doesn’t that hurt your ego? Doesn’t that make you want to _hurt_ me? Doesn’t that make you _hate_ me?”

Youngho is quiet for a long time, and there it is again, the emotion in his eyes that Doyoung can’t figure out. He turns to look at Doyoung, searches his face for a bit, and Doyoung internally squirms under the scrutiny. The god just looks at him, soft brown hair falling into his eyes, and Doyoung thinks that even though the sky is still black and there is no run, Youngho still looks ephemeral against the inky backdrop of the night. Handsome, despite his scars; soft, despite the smoke and fire rolling off his very being and the godly power crackling softly on the sand and prickling against Doyoung’s skin.

Doyoung doesn’t know when the fire and smoke stopped being so scary to him. He knew back then in London that it hadn’t been intimidating, that it was actually _gentle_. It is gentle now, soothing his nerves, warm against the cold of the night as Youngho just stares at him with _that_ look on his handsome face and Doyoung hates how he is especially weak for the conventionally good-looking types.

Youngho opens his mouth and his voice is soft.

“I could _never_ hate you, Kim Doyoung. Not when you are so desperately fighting for a life and a love that you want for yourself. Not when you are so sharp and so smart, but also so determined to stand against all the odds piled against you. Not when you are so _strong_ for living through your lives again and again. Not when you are so _committed_ to your resolution and your defiance that you are willing to subject yourself to death in order to try again and again. I just _can't_ hate _any_ of that. I might hate this marriage set-up, but I can’t hate _you_.”

Doyoung’s heart is in his ears, louder than the crashing of the waves, louder than the crunch of the heels of Youngho’s dress shoes against the sand. He just stares at Youngho in front of him, more honest than an egotistical god, but still more prideful and weathered than a normal mortal man. Youngho is truthful and he means every single word; Doyoung can _feel_ that, and he doesn’t know how to deal with all of it.

He swallows, his throat too dry, and he tears his gaze away from Youngho to stare at his hands. They are rough from the war, littered with scrapes and cuts from scalpels and knives, but nothing like the scarring on Youngho’s. He had spent many nights staring at his own fingers, thinking about wearing a matching ring with Jeffrey, their fingers slotted up together so that the rings lined up nicely. He would press a kiss to Jeffrey’s hands, watch the younger man blush from that, before he would kiss his lover and let himself be taken to bed, to a forever that he had dreamed of and clung to so desperately in the most violent times of the war. When the bombs had shook the ground and Doyoung’s scrubs were drenched with blood and he was looking, desperately _looking_ for Jeffrey, trying to read the serial numbers on the jets through his blurry vision and trying to match it up with the numerals that he had memorised in his head.

His hands are empty, the war is over, and the last memory he has of Jeffrey is the last smile he had given to Doyoung after they had kissed so ardently that it made Doyoung dizzy. The last token he has of those memories of being loved so passionately, so zealously, are the dog tags around his neck, stolen from Jeffrey’s bunker before they packed up his belongings to send home to his family. The metal brands itself into Doyoung’s skin, reminds him of the absence of the lover that he had dreamed of a future with, reminds him of the numbness in his heart and the hopelessness of surviving the war without anyone to love him back.

The tendrils of smoke and fire gently caress his cheek and his shoulders and Doyoung chokes back a sob. He lifts the whiskey bottle to his mouth, chugs the alcohol until his throat burns and his stomach is churning, and struggles to his feet after sloppily dropping the bottle on the sand beside him.

Youngho watches him stagger to the ocean, wade into the waters until the sea is at his ankles. The bottle topples over, amber liquid staining the golden sand, and Doyoung turns around to look at the god sitting on the beach.

“Not going to stop me?”

“Why should I?” Youngho smiles, a soft turn of the corner of his lips. “It’s your life, Doyoung. You didn’t get to choose a lot of things, especially how you ended up here. I’m not going to tell you to not kill yourself.”

“So you’re going to watch me do it?” Doyoung is dizzy, both from alcohol and heartbreak. Even with his blurry vision, Youngho’s face is strikingly clear, from his thin lips to the angry scar running over his right eye curving down to his ear. “I guess you’ve seen a lot of deaths huh, God of War. One heartbroken fool committing suicide doesn’t faze you, you sick immortal.”

Youngho exhales, one sharp huff that seems almost sad to Doyoung’s ears. “Call it punishment, call it pleasure. Call it whatever you like to believe, Doyoung, but trust me. Watching you about to die for the third time doesn’t make it a more pleasant experience than the first.”

Doyoung laughs, the sound shattering like porcelain falling off the table onto the floor, echoing across the empty beach and off the water. He digs into his shirt for the dog tags hanging around his neck, yanking the chain off his head and cradling the silvers of metal gently in his hands. At least like this, he can die with something that belonged to Jeffrey, he thinks. Not like the last time where he had nothing of Yuta’s with him, all because _one_ god had decided to burn the scarf that he had stolen from Yuta’s tiny apartment.

There is a flash, and Jeffrey’s dog tag is gone, wisps of smoke curling up from his palms, still warm from the sudden burst of heat. Doyoung turns around slowly to look at the figure still on the beach. Huh, this specific repetition in all his lives is starting to get on his nerves.

“You let me love him, Youngho,” he calls out, his voice too loud in the empty night. “You’re letting me die by my own hands. Could you at least let me take my own life with something from him keeping me company to the very end too?”

Youngho just smiles at him, the movement tight and strange on his face as he watches Doyoung walk further into the sea. The god grows smaller and smaller as the beach gets further and further, as the water grows colder and colder around Doyoung and it rises higher and higher until the sea ripples gently around his neck. Doyoung watches him, a small figure with a white shirt, a stark contrast against the trees and sands painted black by the darkness of the night.

“Goodbye, Youngho,” he says into the darkness, the roaring of his heartbeat and the sea loud in his ears. “See you in my next life.”

Just before he loses consciousness to the water filling his lungs, Doyoung hears it. A soft tender voice, warm cinders glowing in a fireplace, the dregs of a fire that had been burning too brightly and too violently for too long.

_“See you then, Kim Doyoung.”_

-

In this life, Doyoung meets Youngho in Chicago.

As usual, he smells fire and smoke before he actually sees the immortal, over random whiffs of perfumes, colognes and the rest of the more questionable scents that make up a university lecture hall. Doyoung slides into a seat at the back of the hall, cursing his previous class silently as he pulls out his pens and notebook from his bag. He should have just skipped it, it’s not everyday that legendary feminist writer bell hooks comes to speak at your university; some credits are worth sacrificing.

He turns around to face the front and he sees Youngho looking at him, seated two rows in front of him, hair dyed a rich red, heavy black frames sitting on his nose. The hall falls silent with the tapping of a microphone, and Youngho looks him up and down for a second before turning around to face the front as the professor gets up to introduce bell hooks, not like she needs much introduction as one of _the_ most prominent voices in second-wave and black feminism.

Doyoung stares at the blank lines of his notebooks, clutching his pen too tight and barely acknowledging the applause that had broken out to welcome the guest speaker to the microphone. He shakes his head, bites his lip hard, and raises his head to receive the readings that are being passed around the hall. He tries hard not to stare at the back of Youngho’s head, tries to ignore the shock of dark red hair that seems to stand out in the sea of many heads with a multitude of diverse hair colours. He forces himself to focus, to take notes, to highlight sentences as bell hooks speaks quickly, but powerfully, and tries to tamp down the shudders crawling under his skin in the presence of fire and smoke.

The lecture ends in an hour, and Doyoung is hurriedly shoving his books and papers into his backpack, determined to get out of there while other students swarm to the front, eager to shake hands with the speaker and maybe get their copy of _Ain’t I a Woman?_ signed by the legend herself. Maybe if he gets out of there fast enough, he won’t have to talk to Youngho, and maybe the god would take pity on him and actually ignore him for once.

The smell of smoke and fire intensifies and Doyoung sighs as his pen rolls off the table. There is no point trying to run now, he thinks, as he watches a hand come into his sight, a familiar scar curving across the back, holding his pen out towards him.

He looks up into a familiar face, and Youngho smiles at him without any malice in his eyes.

-

“I think this is the oldest age that I’ve met you at.”

Doyoung snorts, sips at his tea latte. “Not my fault, exactly. You appear to me, not the other way around.”

Youngho hums, tilts his head and carefully looks Doyoung up and down. “You look good.”

Doyoung feels naked under Youngho’s gaze, seated in front of the immortal god in a coffee shop, where said god had paid for the drinks and cake in front of them. He studies Youngho’s face, the scar on the god’s face significantly lighter, dark red hair soft and unstyled across Youngho’s forehead. The god is dressed to fit the times, graphic band tee stretched tight across broad shoulders and muscled arms, tucked into ripped skinny jeans. He is wearing converse just like Doyoung, except they are dark green and high-tops, where Doyoung prefers his dark blue and just the normal style because he _hates_ unlacing high-tops. Youngho lifts his cup of iced Americano, lips catching the slender green straw, and Doyoung watches, entranced as his throat bobs as the God of War chugs coffee like a caffeine-deprived student.

He tears his eyes away from Youngho to pick at the cheesecake in between them on the table. “Why are you here anyways? Isn’t the Cold War over already? I don’t think there’s any big form of violence, or anything close to being a war, coming anyways.”

Youngho smiles at him, handsome and charming, and Doyoung hears some girls beside them titter and whisper. He looks away from them to roll his eyes, taking a long sip of his drink to swallow down the snappy remark sitting in his throat. Youngho snickers quietly, and Doyoung shoots him a glare, trying to ignore how their thighs are pressed closely under the tiny table in this cramped coffee shop.

“A war doesn’t always mean violence and guns and atomic bombs, Doyoung,” Youngho pulls the cheesecake towards him, takes off a chunk with his own fork. “Sometimes, humans just want to fight for the inequalities in life, make sure that there are equal rights, that there is justice. I am drawn to the desire to want to make a difference, the drive to put forth a change, the basic _want_ for a better world to live in. Not necessarily bloodshed and tanks staring each other down across nation borders.”

“Is your name even Doyoung in this life?” he asks Doyoung casually, like they are friends, not an immortal god sitting opposite his truant, defiant bride that keeps committing suicide so that he does not have to fulfill his end of the marriage. It seems _too normal_ for Doyoung’s liking, sitting here in his ratty plaid shirt and skinny jeans opposite Youngho who is still too handsome, still radiates power and charisma off his very being, still smells of smoke and fire which Doyoung finds oddly comforting in this world suffering the aftereffects of the blown-up egos of two superpower nations that had made the world their chessboard and other nations their chess pieces. He’s sitting here, having a drink and sharing cake with an immortal god, who looks not much older than him, whom he’s supposed to be married to, whom he’s supposed to hate.

Doyoung doesn’t know when he stopped hating Youngho. Maybe it was somewhere between that time Youngho tied the blue ribbon around his neck or the time Youngho watched him sink beneath the waters of the sea at Sicily. He fidgets with the cup sleeve of his drink, watches Youngho’s gaze settle on him, and he realises belatedly that he hasn’t answered the question.

“No,” he reaches for the cheesecake, deliberately targeting the corner that is untouched by Youngho’s fork. “I’m James to my non-Korean friends, which are mainly my university friends. But to my Korean friends, my church friends, I’m Dongyoung.”

“James,” Youngho smiles, small and careful, “it always did suit you more. Did your parents give the name to you?”

Doyoung nods, and the cheesecake is too heavy in his mouth. He swallows it with effort, washes it down with his diluted tea latte. “So you’re here because of what? Feminism? LGBT rights? Black lives protests? Socialism movements? Quite interesting that you chose a university instead of an organisation to blend into.”

Youngho’s smile is full of teeth this time, his dark brown eyes excited and eager as he leans forward, and Doyoung recognises that look. It is similar to the one that Youngho had when he was seated against his cot in the medic quarters, the spitting image of Doyoung’s wet dreams and the definition of sin. “Everything,” he tells Doyoung, elbows set on the table. Doyoung tries to ignore the strain of toned muscle against fabric, tries to focus on Youngho’s face instead.

“I am drawn to _everything_. Every single movement fighting for a different cause, every change that they want for this world, every single piece of art and writing that is being put out,” he inhales sharply, and Doyoung realises that he’s actually _exhilarated_ because of it. “It’s _wonderful_ , the way mortals fight for a cause that cannot be resolved with a few decisions. They know the effects, the consequences, that it is a battle that cannot be won within their lifespan, and yet they still _fight_ with all their heart and all their determination. It’s absolutely _amazing_.”

“As for well, why a university?” he gestures around them, his eyes sweeping over the crowd for a bit before they snap back to Doyoung’s gaze. “It’s where the young minds of the future are cultivated, no? It’s where they meet their academic idols, where they realise that they have a chance to make a difference in lives, where they find out what they are good at and what they want to contribute after they graduate. It’s a place of hope, a place where the plans revolutions are conceived, where the most iconic writers and artists and speakers congregate and in turn, push out another generation of fighters who will continue the battle against the injustice and tyranny that rules this selfish fuck-up of a world ruined by prejudice and villainy.”

Doyoung coughs gently into his cup. “To me, it’s just a scam. You have to pay for education, and _that’s_ a basic right. Not everyone has access to this, not everyone sees these battles as worthy ones to fight.”

Youngho grins, and hooks his ankle around Doyoung’s under the table, startling him and nearly making him drop his drink. He leans forward, crowding into Doyoung’s personal space, and Doyoung feels extremely exposed despite the fact that they are both fully dressed and are surrounded by a lot of people.

“My little activist,” Youngho coos gently at him, and Doyoung wants to slap him so hard and maybe knock his teeth out. He wonders how Youngho knows that he spends his weekends helping to design fliers for the LGBT march, or that he spends his nights editing submissions to the campus Feminism Fight zine. Doyoung hates the injustice of the world. He always has, since the day he was taken away from his education and was told that he has to marry a fucking god. In this era where there are academic icons like Alexander Doty and Alice Walker, literary icons like Kurt Vonnegut and Stephen King, artistic icons like Barbara Kruger and the Guerrilla Girls, Doyoung has never felt so _alive_ and so in his element of being angry at the world.

Youngho is looking at him, eyes locked on his face, and Doyoung realises that he is looking at him with fondness, with affection. The god’s ankle is warm against his under the table, and there are about fifty other people in the cafe and thousands of people wandering around campus at this moment, but Youngho looks at him like he’s the _only_ _one_ worth looking at. Heat creeps up his neck, settling into what he is sure is redness in his cheeks, and Doyoung just wants to run away from Youngho and forget that he has ever seen him.

Youngho leans back into his chair, reaches for his Americano again, and his ankle falls away from Doyoung’s. The spell is broken, just like that, as Youngho scrutinises the array of pastries on display beside them and sips on his coffee. Doyoung stares at the half-eaten cake on the table between them, and wonders if this is a lifetime where he can actually be friends with his immortal betrothed who has not died a single time while he is on his fourth life.

“You’re seeing the cute barista behind the cashier, aren’t you?”

Doyoung nearly chokes on his drink. “What gave you the idea?”

Youngho lifts an eyebrow. “First, he let us have the cake for free. Second, he is wearing the same bracelet as you. Thirdly, he keeps looking over here and he looks like he’s torn between staying at his job or climbing over the counter to come and strangle me.”

Doyoung snorts. “That’s dumb, Jungwoo isn’t possessive. He flirts with everyone, including that dumb big oaf that made our drinks behind the counter. That boy is _so_ whipped for him he takes the fall for every single mistake Jungwoo makes. It’s a miracle he hasn’t gotten fired.”

Youngho smiles at him again, but this time there is that _same_ emotion that Doyoung can’t figure out in his eyes. He thinks that after dying three times (by his own will, but that point seems kind of secondary, no?), now on his fourth life and seeing Youngho more than a few times, he would have figured out what emotion is on Youngho’s face by now. The smile doesn’t really reach the god’s eyes despite the curve of his lips, and he just stares at Doyoung, that same annoying emotion that Doyoung just can’t figure out on his face.

There are cold fingers on the back of his neck and Doyoung jumps.

“Hey, it’s me, babe,” Jungwoo grins at him, lips rosy and full, and Doyoung wants to kiss him right there. So he does, and his boyfriend clambers onto his lap shamelessly, hooking his arms around Doyoung’s neck and tangling their legs together. Jungwoo is clingy, and it’s undoubtedly one of his habits that Doyoung finds endearing, but in _public_? He chances a look at Youngho’s face, the god still sitting in front of him, and Youngho just tilts his chin up with a smug smile on his face. _I told you so_ , written all over his face, _he’s jealous_.

Doyoung snorts, wraps an arm around Jungwoo’s waist, and smiles at him gently. “Your shift isn’t over yet, Woo. Won’t your boss get angry when he finds out that you’re here flirting instead of actually doing your job?”

Jungwoo scoffs, the pout on his face absolutely endearing, innocent with hints of deviousness lurking in his eyes. “I asked to be let off early,” he purrs, playing with the collar of Doyoung’s shirt, seemingly oblivious to the entire coffee shop packed with customers and one immortal God of War seated less than five meters in front of him. “I missed my boyfriend so much, I just couldn’t wait for my shift to end.”

“Also, I couldn’t help but notice that my _boyfriend_ ,” the emphasis on that last word doesn’t go unnoticed by Doyoung (or Youngho, judging from the snicker that had escaped the immortal’s lips), “is being accompanied by a very handsome man. Tell me, James Kim, are you cheating on me right in front of me? Right where I can see?”

Youngho starts full-on _giggling_ right in front of them, broad shoulders shaking with laughter. Jungwoo is visibly confused, from the way his fingers have stilled on Doyoung’s collar, to his wide eyes locked on the figure sitting opposite them, his fingers trembling on the plastic cup holding his Americano as his choked chuckles die down.

“Sorry, for being rude,” he extends his hand over the table towards Jungwoo, and Doyoung is again struck with deja vu, except well for his case it _isn’t_. He has seen this before, Youngho introducing himself to Jeffrey as Johnny from the US Air Forces, making up some excuse on how he knows Doyoung and striking up conversation easily. Doyoung remembers Corporal Johnny Seo of the Eighth Unit of the United States Air Force very well, well-liked for his easy-going nature and his sociable, approachable personality. He has no doubt that in this life, Youngho is just as charming, equally charismatic, and just _probably_ even more attractive due to the scars being less obvious due to whatever immortal powers he has.

“I’m John Suh,” he introduces himself to Jungwoo, “so you’re the lucky person that has captured James’ attention? What a lucky guy he is, to catch someone as cute as you.”

Doyoung groans internally as he watches a familiar devious sparkle return to Jungwoo’s eyes, already dreading how this is going to play out. His boyfriend barely moves from his lap to grasp Youngho’s hand firmly, eyes curled up into crescents and his lips stretched wide in a grin that Doyoung knows is absolutely sincere. Jungwoo likes Youngho, perhaps a little bit _too much_.

“I’m Jungwoo,” he greets Youngho, voice silky and smooth, the same one that he had used on Doyoung at the Gay Pride mixer to get Doyoung to come home with him for the first time.

“Nice to meet you, John. Now why hasn’t James ever mentioned your very _dashing_ and _handsome_ existence to me?”

Doyoung catches Youngho’s eye behind Jungwoo’s back and makes sure to scowl; Youngho just smiles back at him serenely.

-

“Do you think we can have a threesome with John?”

Doyoung should have seen this coming. He doesn’t look up from where he’s marking undergraduate essays on his bedroom floor, circles a spelling error, strikes out some sentences that don’t make any sense, and writes a snappy comment in the margins before carefully opening his mouth. Jungwoo is stretched across his queen-sized bed, dressed only in boxers and one of Doyoung’s oversized dress shirts, lips still pink from their intense make-out session earlier. Doyoung thinks he looks like the image of cherubic sin: young, sweet, but undoubtedly sly and aware of the temptation that he embodies.

“No,” he scrawls a B minus at the end of the essay and tosses it onto the completed pile. “I don’t think he would be down for that. He doesn’t seem like the type.”

“But, _hyuuuuuuung_ ,” Jungwoo always resorts to Korean to whine, his eyes round and wet like a puppy’s, and Doyoung makes it a point to _not_ look at him when he makes that face. “He’s hot, he’s muscular, and he’s bisexual. It wouldn’t be our first threesome either. Maybe he will be the one that sticks around because everyone else was so _boring_.”

Ah, Jungwoo. His boyfriend, his little sex fiend. There are many things Doyoung loves about him, and his high sex drive is definitely one of them. Doyoung undeniably loves sex, especially when Jungwoo is involved, and he’s not too much of a prude to admit that he does enjoy the threesomes that they engage in occassionally whenever they both find someone attractive.

Doyoung has never said it out loud, he has always considered Youngho handsome even if his feelings towards the immortal have never bordered on friendly. He is a different kind of attractive compared to Jungwoo, who is slim and delicate and stirs Doyoung’s instincts to want to dominate and tease until he’s desperate and begging to orgasm with his cock hard and red in Doyoung’s hands. Like Jungwoo said, Youngho is tall and muscular, easily towering over Doyoung in all his lives, and his fashion choices throughout the different periods have only emphasised that. He is clean lines and sharp angles, intimidating but sociable, with an easy smile that doesn’t soften the steel in his eyes. Humans are drawn to charisma and presence, and as an immortal walking amongst them, both traits ooze from Youngho’s very being. So, it isn’t much of a surprise that both men and women are drawn to him alike.

Women. Doyoung blinks, suddenly remembering the time when he had asked Youngho _are you okay with having a_ male _bride?_ The god hadn’t answered his question back then. Doyoung had always assumed that he had preferred women over men, which to him explained Youngho’s reluctance in dealing with him back then. It had never particularly bothered Doyoung honestly, but for some reason, the realisation that Youngho might _actually_ prefer women over men is leaving a bad taste in his mouth right now and he really does _not_ like it a single bit.

“I bet John can lift even you,” Jungwoo’s eyes are dreamy, unfocused as he drapes himself over Doyoung’s shoulder and starts casually unbuttoning his shirt. “He’s so tall and those _muscles_ , so delicious. He looks like he works out five days a week, which is kind of impossible considering that he works in the student administration department and has a boring nine to five job. You’ve always been so pliant to bottom for our flings who are like him, those who can shove you against the wall and fuck you so hard that you’re the one begging for once.”

Doyoung tries to ignore the kisses that his boyfriend is littering up his neck and behind his ear, attempting to focus on the loopy scrawl of the undergraduate essay in front of him while tamping down the arousal rising in his stomach. Jungwoo is responsible for stirring a different side of him awake in the bedroom, compared to the previous lovers that he has had in his previous lives, and that is what Doyoung loves about him. Doyoung loves caring for Jungwoo, loves cleaning his whiny boyfriend up after their romps in bed, loves tucking him in after he falls asleep studying for his engineering exams at Doyoung’s desk. Doyoung has always liked being cared for, but Jungwoo has made him realise that it is perfectly fine to feel content and happiness spoiling for someone who likes being spoiled by him.

_Will Youngho spoil him, if he submits to being Youngho’s bride?_

Doyoung blinks the thought away rapidly, because _where the fuck_ had that come from? He has _never_ entertained the thought of submitting before, not even back then when the priest from Ares had sat down with his parents and presented them with an offer of unlimited resources until their deaths in exchange for Doyoung’s hand in marriage to one God of War. His family hadn’t been poor, but they weren’t horribly rich either, and at one point, Doyoung had really thought that this marriage would be worth it so long his parents could live comfortably for the rest of their lives. However, since the day he had come up with the plan, the day right before he had chosen to fall off the cliff right before he properly became the bride of the God of War, he had never consciously considered the option of _just becoming_ Youngho’s bride.

He thinks about the box hidden at the back of his bookcase, filled with Stephen King and Virginia Woolf, pressed into his hands as Jungwoo went to get his things from his locker. Youngho had smiled at him as he untied the blue ribbon wrapped around it to reveal a tie in the same colour. Doyoung is immediately transported momentarily into the past, a blue ribbon tied around his wrist, knotted in a perfect bow around his neck. He had looked up at Youngho, asking a question with his eyes instead of his words.

Youngho had just smiled, taken the ribbon from him, and looped it gently around his wrist, right beside the bracelet that had its patching pair clasped around Jungwoo’s own.

 _Consider it a gift that has missed its due date_ , he had told Doyoung softly, fingers deftly pulling the blue strands into a bow sitting right above Doyoung’s pulse. _I couldn’t give it to you last time. Sicily didn’t seem like an appropriate gift occasion._

Doyoung wonders how Youngho knows that blue is his favourite colour, wonders since when he had realised that fact about him. He hadn’t found it in himself to return the gift, and Youngho had instead stepped back and waved goodbye to him and Jungwoo before running for the bus that was slowly inching its way up the road. Once he had gotten home, Doyoung had ripped off the ribbon on his wrist, shoved it in the same box as the tie and slid it behind his bookcase before running to the bathroom. He had stood there with his hand under the sink, scalding water running over his pulse, and tried to get the image of Youngho with that small smile and mysterious emotion on his face out of his head.

Doyoung and Jungwoo’s sex life might be an open one, but Doyoung isn’t someone who _cheats_. Immortal betrothed or not, his affection is singular, and intensely so, and he has absolutely _not_ fallen for anyone else as much as he has than Jungwoo in this life. He feels slightly guilty, hiding the gift from his boyfriend, but Doyoung has absolutely no intentions of wearing Youngho’s gift or seeking him out deliberately even if they are on the same campus.

“Hyung?” Jungwoo’s voice is velvet, lined with promises of mind-numbing pleasure and the aftermath of dark hickies and post-sex kisses, and all thoughts of Youngho fly out his head. Fuck the undergraduate essays, he thinks, as he turns around to kiss Jungwoo and pull him onto his lap. They can wait for a bit, he is a bit ahead of schedule after all.

He watches Jungwoo curl into his sheets, cheeks flushed from the ebbing of his high and reaches down to cradle his lover’s face. Jungwoo nuzzles into his palm, delighted with the attention, and Doyoung thinks he’s the most adorable being that he has never seen in all of his lives; porcupines, cats, and pomeranians included.

“You can sleep with John if you want, you know,” he offers offhandedly, watching as Jungwoo’s eyes fly wide open and search his face. He genuinely feels no jealousy as he says that; Jungwoo has a certain type that he is weak for, physically at least, and Doyoung has no doubt that Youngho fits it to a tee. It isn’t something that he’s uncomfortable with after all, even if Jungwoo has multiple sexual partners, Doyoung is the only one that he calls his _boyfriend_. It is _his_ bed that Jungwoo stays in after sex, it is _his_ food that Jungwoo eats in the mornings, and it is _him_ that Jungwoo cuddles on the couch with and makes out with after they are done with their exams and marking.

It is _Jungwoo_ that Doyoung wants to bring home to his parents.

Jungwoo pulls him down for another kiss full of tongue, and Doyoung doesn’t regret his words a single bit.

-

“Did you tell Jungwoo to come and seduce me?”

It is in the coffee shop that they meet again, but Jungwoo isn’t behind the cashier this time. He’s having office hours, tutoring undergraduates in math with that patient smile that Doyoung loves, and probably itching to get off the clock so that he can run home and pester Doyoung into doing his makeup for him. It is a Friday night, after all, and the parties are in full swing, and Jungwoo loves going to them even if Doyoung doesn’t feel up to accompanying him.

He doesn’t look up from his copy of _Slaughterhouse Five_ and the various post-its littered across his notebooks. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Youngho snorts, slings his messenger bag over the back of the chair on the other side of the table and drops into it. Doyoung can feel his eyes boring into the top of his head, but instead he chooses to not look up, folding the corner of a page that he intends to revisit for the third chapter of his thesis. Youngho just sits there in silence for a bit, his shoe tapping an irritable rhythm on the polished floor of the coffee shop while Doyoung works on the outline of his third chapter and writes reminders for the weekend on another post-it.

“I’m not going to sleep with him, Doyoung.”

“I told you to stop calling me that, _John_ ,” Doyoung sighs, capping his pen and starting on organising his post-its by order of importance. Clearly he isn’t going to get any work done with Youngho sitting in front of him and not intending to let the conversation die any time soon. “And I don’t really care if you sleep with Jungwoo or not. Just make sure you turn him down gently.”

Youngho snorts sarcastically, the sound loud in his ears despite the muffled din surrounding them. “You’re a funny one, Kim Doyoung, Sharing your lover with others? I never thought that you would be someone who would do that.”

“It’s just a manner of communication,” Doyoung is undeterred, stapling together his notes and sliding them into his plastic folders. He still hasn’t looked at Youngho, and for some reason, Doyoung doesn’t really want to know how the immortal’s face looks like right now. “I’m okay with it. It’s not cheating, not to me anyways. I just don’t seek the same sexual pleasures if Jungwoo himself is not involved.”

The smell of smoke and fire fills his nostrils, intense and murky, hot and heavy in a way that threatens to clog his throat and choke him. It throws Doyoung back, makes his head snap up and stare at Youngho who is looking at him with a mix of disappointment and anger etched into the sharp planes of his handsome face. He has never seen Youngho look like this, he realises. Youngho has looked unsure, tired, excited, and happy, drunk on power even, but despite being the God of War, he has never once gotten angry or even anything remotely close to being irritated. Youngho loves war, loves the human drive to fight, loves the conflict that is borne out of the clash of ideals and the burning need for justice. But Doyoung has _never_ seen him get angry at anything _ever_ , regardless of how childish and immoral human antics are.

Youngho is angry now, he realises. He has never seen an angry Youngho before, not in all of the lives that he has lived before. The smell of fire and smoke is potent and fervid, and Youngho’s face is twisted into an expression that makes him look _cruel_.

“What is it, Youngho?” He doesn’t realise that he has slipped back into an old habit, too easily forgotten in the face of an immortal god that is practically radiating the aura of murder and destruction in a small coffeeshop on a university campus. At the sound of his name falling from Doyoung’s lips, Youngho blinks, and suddenly it is as though his anger had never existed in the first place.

“It’s nothing, _James_.”

Youngho uncrosses his legs, grabs his bag from off the chair and stands up. The sound of his chair legs grating against the floor is loud in Doyoung’s ears, and he refuses to look at Doyoung at all despite being the one who had initiated conversation in the first place. The sound of his name, despite it being his real name in his life-time, falling off Youngho’s tongue in a manner colder than ice is just _wrong_.

 _To me, you’ll always be Doyoung_.

Doyoung feels it again, that wretched feeling of being rejected, being discarded by Youngho sitting in the pits of his stomach. As he watches Youngho sling his bag across his shoulder and reach for his sunglasses on the table, he is suddenly overcome with the sudden thought of _not_ seeing Youngho ever in his life. Doyoung doesn’t like it, for some reason he _just_ cannot bring himself to understand. He has always viewed Youngho as an unnecessary nuisance in his lives, darting in and out whenever it suited the god’s fancy, and deliberately inserting himself into Doyoung’s life to stir some drama up under the pretense of “interacting” with him or whatever. Maybe Doyoung is just too used to this by now, maybe Youngho’s presence in his life is a constant that he no longer wants to get rid of, but what happens next is something Doyoung doesn’t process in his brain before his body moves on its own.

“Youngho, please. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

His fingers are on the sleeve of Youngho’s blazer, and Youngho is looking down on him with that same expression that baffles him so. He doesn’t know what compelled him to do that or to stop Youngho from leaving, but in that moment all he can think about is how _young_ and _human_ Youngho looks against the golden light of the sunset flooding the cafe through the windows.

_(Maybe, just maybe, he has gotten used to having Youngho around. Someone who knows of his many lives and someone who just stays with him. Someone who is unable to succumb to the natural decay of human life, standing against the harsh flow of time untouched. An immortal constant that has seen Doyoung through the highs and lows of his many lives and has sent him off with a strange smile in his last one._

_Maybe, just maybe, Youngho means something to Doyoung. Even if he is not in love with the immortal, and is not willing to submit to the stupid farce of the betrothal at all._

_Maybe, Doyoung wants Youngho as a friend. In this stupid loop of life, death and reincarnation.)_

Youngho smiles at him, that stupid emotion still a mystery to Doyoung, still stuck on his face and permanently sunken in his eyes as he leans down to whisper into Doyoung’s ear.

The bracelet around Doyoung’s wrist burns against his skin before disintegrating completely.

-

The Van Gogh Museum is surprisingly quiet on the day that Doyoung decides to visit.

He wanders the near-empty halls, earphones in his ears playing Park Hyoshin’s latest album on a loop, taking his time to peruse all the works on display. After about twenty minutes or so, he finds the work he had been looking for, pleased to find a bench placed in front of the wall that it is hung on, and sinks down in front of it gratefully.

Doyoung turns off his music and just sits there, hands in his pockets, staring fondly at the painting that he had wanted to buy from the artist back then before tanks were invented and the world was plunged into an endless abyss of violence and power struggles that lasted until today. It is a never-ending disaster, he thinks, human greed and selfish desires really know no bounds. The desire to keep the powerful in power and keep the powerless under their heel, the lust to keep a status quo that benefits only the rich and the privileged, rages on in an uninterrupted war against those that fight for justice, for equality, for a better world for all.

Speaking of a war, he hasn’t seen one God of War in a while.

Speaking of the devil, he thinks, as he smells smoke and fire, the familiar smell crawling under his skin and settling under it like a cat coming home to rest in its nest after being away too long.

He sits beside Doyoung on the cushioned bench, hands stuck in the own pockets of his own coat. It is brown and soft, fitting his broad shoulders with a soft curve as the man stares at the same painting that Doyoung has been fixated on for the past ten minutes or so. Doyoung turns to look at him properly, eyes following the curl of the black fringe swept softly over one side of his face, gaze carefully tracing the sharp angle of his handsome angular face before finding the familiar scar still slashed across one eye and running over his cheekbone before ending right before the sideburn beside his ear.

“You look good with this hair.”

The other figure hums, eyes still fixed on the painting. Doyoung watches him lean back, hands resting on the cushioned surface behind him, and he’s taken back to earlier vignettes in time; on a Victorian style bed with silk sheets, on a small soldier's cot lined with cheap cotton. Youngho still looks heartbreakingly handsome, in the year 2016, here in Amsterdam, like he hasn’t aged a single bit, dressed from head to toe in a mix of luxury brands that look even more expensive on his broad frame.

That particular room is empty except for the two of them, and Doyoung wonders at the back of his mind if Youngho had purposely planned it like that. He wraps his earphones around his phone and slides it into the pocket of his own coat (black, from Louis Vuitton), and waits for Youngho to speak. It had been weird being the first one to initiate the conversation; Youngho had always been the one who had spoken first in their encounters.

“I don’t understand why you wanted that painting so much. It wasn’t worth much during that time, was it?”

Doyoung turns around to look at the painting in question, eyes running over the faded shades of yellow, blue and green on the canvas. “Hm? So you knew of my love for this particular work?”

“ _Bedroom in Arles_ , the first version, painted by Vincent Van Gogh in 1888. This particular version never left the artist’s estate, came into the possession of the Vincent van Gogh Foundation established by the artist’s nephew, and has been on permanent loan to this particular museum since 1994.” Youngho recites the information almost mechanically, like he was reading off the catalogue or maybe the Wikipedia page of this work. “You wanted it so badly then, you made a trip to Arles during your week in Paris back then. You went to visit Van Gogh himself, no? At the Yellow House. You went to try and convince him to sell you this particular piece that he had not sent to his brother for sale.”

Doyoung hums, neither acknowledging or dismissing Youngho’s words. “He turned me down almost immediately, despite the ridiculous sum I offered,” he sighs quietly, eyes following the frame that ensconced said painting in discussion. “It could have bought him and his entire family out of debt, shot his name to fame, but he insisted that he was not going to sell it to anyone. Not this version. He died without a penny to his name, poor Vincent.”

“There is a reason why I wanted this particular version, you know,” he continues, his voice too loud in the empty room, but Doyoung doesn’t care. “Do you know that Gauguin stayed with him at the Yellow House for quite a long period of time? The door on the left supposedly leads to the guest bedroom that Vincent had prepared for him, yet it is rumoured that Gauguin never actually used it during his stay there.”

It is Youngho’s turn to hum in response, the sound coming out pitched in the form of a wordless question. Doyoung feels his heartbeat speed up as he mentally prepares himself for what he is going to say next. He has coveted this painting for a very long time, across three lives, to be exact, but this is the first time verbalising why he wants this particular painting from van Gogh so much. It is the singular one other thing that Doyoung has desired so ardently since the day he was told that he is the mortal betrothed of an immortal god, and perhaps the only physical object that he aches to own, to possess, to touch and call his own.

If you had told Doyoung that he would one day feel the urge to put this indescribable need for one particular painting into words, and tell it to the one immortal god that he has spent all his lives running away desperately from, he would have laughed and told you that you were crazy. Since the day he had met Ares, God of War for the first time, one year before he was due to wed to said god, Kim Doyoung had vowed to never submit to this fate. He would not be the simpering, submissive, mortal bride that obediently yielded to a fate determined by immortal hands. He had made a promise to himself back then, that he would spend all his lives, all the cycles of death and reincarnation, running away from this stupid pre-determined destiny that had been laid out for him without considering his own wants or feelings.

It’s kind of an irony, he thinks, that he has buried this ardent, burning desire for a painting deep down in him for so long, only to be willing to share it with the one immortal being that he has deliberately chosen to run away from for so long. There is no one else in the room except him, a twenty-seven year-old PhD student in this life, and his immortal betrothed (Ares, the God of War) sitting less than a meter away from him in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam South, in front of the very painting that has now slipped out of his fingertips permanently.

“You look like you’re in the past again.”

Youngho’s voice is soft in his ears, and Doyoung tears his eyes off the painting to look at him. Youngho’s face is soft in the halogen lighting of the museum, half of his face hidden by the high collar of his brown coat, his fringe long and unstyled. His eyes are tender, searching Doyoung’s face carefully, gently tracing over Doyoung’s features and taking in how he looks in this life.

“Maybe,” he answers, and his voice is just as soft, but it is still loud in his ears, in the small space between him and Youngho on the cushioned bench. “Thank you for pulling me out of it.”

Youngho smiles at him, his face still obscured by the turned-up collar of his coat, but Doyoung sees it in the way that his eyes crinkle into soft lines and how the apples of his cheek puff up with the action. “It does no one any good to live with the ghosts of their pasts,” he murmurs, his fingers twitching for a bit before the god pulls them back into a loose fist, “you have lived through four lives so far. It must be tiring, living this fifth one.”

“Yes, and no,” Doyoung replies, unable to take his eyes off Youngho’s face as the other crosses his legs, and tilts his head to the side, eyes fixed on Doyoung’s face as well. “It’s a different endeavour, with every life I live. A different identity, a different family, a different environment, different interests, different ambitions even. If anything, I am grateful for being able to remember things that would otherwise mean nothing to me. Hemingway once said - _I guess, everything reminds you of something_ \- no? Things in the present reminds me of the past, like this painting in front of us, for example. There’s always something that reminds me of someone, or something from my past in the present lives that I live.”

“And your lovers?” Youngho asks, after the count of one heartbeat, and Doyoung _really_ should have seen this question coming. He looks down at the luxurious black of the cushioned bench, eyes tracing the dips and curves before settling on Youngho’s fist, still loosely clenched on the surface. The scar is still there, Doyoung realises, jagged and raised skin splitting the skin between Youngho’s knuckles and wrist, stark against a tanned background littered with shallower cuts and scrapes.

“I remember all of them,” he says into the silence in between them, in front of the painting that he has wanted so desperately since the day he had seen it in photographs passed around the salon that he had accompanied Ten to. Their faces flash before his eyes, and Doyoung feels his throat close as he remembers them, and he almost slips right back into the whirlpool of his past, caught up with the lovers that he had loved and lost, which have all been taken cruelly away from him by the passing of time that breaks humanity apart only to for humans to claw back and build a new future for themselves.

Smoke and fire curls gently around his wrists, pulls him out of the various vignettes of his history, and grounds him in the present day. Doyoung sees Youngho’s face, creased with worry, but the smoke and fire that surrounds him is reassuring and soothing. It is warm and adoring, settling in Doyoung’s veins like warm soju on a cold night.

Doyoung’s heart squeezes, thumps with an emotion that he can’t really place. It isn’t something that he associates with being in Youngho’s presence, something that he can’t really decipher. It’s weird, Doyoung thinks, he’s usually very aware of his emotions, and he is typically able to identify them easily enough. This only happens whenever Youngho is around, he realises.

Youngho smiles carefully at him, nods at him to continue.

“Yuta, with his bony hands and sunshine smile, smelling of apples and coals, tender but ardent in the way he takes me in bed. Jeffrey, with his young handsome face, eager to please and passionate in his affections, with gunpowder mixed into the sweet peachiness that lingers around his very being. Jungwoo, innocent-looking but devious with the inclination to provoke and get under your skin, loud in the physical expressions of his adoration, a mix of sweetness and tartness like those in strawberries.”

“And how do you remember me?”

Doyoung turns around to stare at the immortal god seated beside him. Youngho is looking at him, and that _same goddamn_ emotion is in his eyes again and it tugs at Doyoung’s heart and threatens to tear it open and spill it out of his chest.

It’s different now, Doyoung knows what the emotion is now.

It takes all of his will to not look away from Youngho’s face as he opens his mouth, his throat suddenly too dry and his heart beating too loudly in his chest.

“You’re Youngho, that’s who I remember you as.”

The smile Youngho gives him in response is so _tender_ , Doyoung feels warm all over in a way that he hasn’t experienced in a while.

-

“I like your pink hair.”

It’s the first thing Youngho says to him after they exit the museum. Doyoung leads him in the direction of a cheap, good bistro tucked in the back of one of the lanes along Museum Square. Youngho follows him, close enough that it is obvious that they are walking together, but with just enough space between them that Doyoung feels the distance. He greets the maître d in fluent Portuguese, asks for a table for two, and watches Youngho scan the wine list placed in front of them with a careful eye.

“Thank you,” he rakes his fingers through his locks, dyed a bright cherry pink, conscious of the way Youngho’s eyes follow the movement. “You look good too, with dark hair. But I think I like red hair on you the best.”

Youngho stares at him for a bit, and Doyoung wonders if the compliment was a bit too much.

“Thank you, Doyoung,” the god replies, tone still soft and sincere before his thick eyebrows furrow together in thought. “Wait, I forgot to ask you your name in this life.”

Doyoung laughs into the glass of red that Youngho had ordered for both of them (in fluent Portuguese too, Doyoung had expected that), savors the rich taste on his tongue. “It’s actually Doyoung. Kim Doyoung. Again, after nearly three centuries and four lives.”

Youngho blinks at him, and the laughter that falls from his lips is one of the most beautiful things that he has heard in _all_ of his lives. The immortal smiles at him, the expression stretching his face wide, as he extends his glass towards Doyoung in a gesture for a toast.

“Nice to meet you again, Kim Doyoung. I’m Suh Youngho.”

Doyoung doesn’t hesitate to clink his glass against the god’s, and the smile that curls his lips is just as genuine. His heart is stuttering in his chest, smoke and fire warm in his veins, and he feels _comfortable_ with Youngho, he realises. He doesn’t feel anger or resentment towards the other being, Ares, God of War, immortal betrothed, or whatever. He feels comfortable, relaxed, _pleasant_ even, with Youngho.

“Nice to meet you again, Suh Youngho.”

-

It’s expensive, living alone in Amsterdam, so Doyoung has housemates. After more than a century, he meets Ten Lee and Qian Kun again, as his fellow PhD candidates at the University of Amsterdam. Of course, they don’t remember a thing about being friends with the younger Lord Kim distantly related to Queen Victoria of England and the various tea times that they have spent together in the parlour of the Kims’ family house. Funnily enough, they have the same names, except Ten’s birth name is way too long and complicated for white people to pronounce, so he just tells them to call him Ten ( _like the number, easy_ ).

Happy coincidences, Doyoung thinks.

Everything about them reminds Doyoung of something of the Ten and Kun he had been friends back then during the Victorian era. It’s present in the way that Ten refuses to eat fruits, complaining loudly about the texture as Doyoung slices peaches in front of him and feeds them to Kun who is poring over the latest article written about Ai Wei Wei. There’s also the way Kun looks tenderly at Ten while their Thai roommate scowls at his latest flash sketches on his ipad while twirling his apple pencil, his eyes tracing the roman numerals inked into the skin of Ten’s wrist right above his pulse. They aren’t together yet, not in this life of Doyoung’s, but he can see the way that they steal glances at each other and the way that Ten clings to Kun on the nights when writing, research, and drawing get equally difficult. He sees the way Kun holds Ten tightly, almost possessive but always tender, always adoring, like he would never ever let Ten go even if Ten turned his affections to someone else.

When Ten meets Youngho, he is enamoured. Kun, on the other hand, is heartbroken.

Youngho’s first meeting with his housemates (and best friends, but Doyoung is hardly willing to admit that) is entirely unplanned. Doyoung had been sitting with Youngho in a cafe for brunch, just nearby their university, animatedly telling the immortal god about two students in his undergraduate class who keep going for each other’s throats. Youngho is easy to hang out with as a friend, Doyoung thinks, handsome in his dress shirts and form-fitting slacks, teasing him repeatedly about his hatred for cucumbers and telling him lightly that he should get laid if he’s so stressed from juggling research for his doctorate thesis and marking undergraduate essays comparing Cezanne and Matisse.

Ten and Kun had come into the cafe, sleep deprived from an all-nighter, eager for food and caffeine. They had spotted Doyoung easily (it was the pink hair, it’s starting to get a little too conspicuous, Doyoung thinks), come over to say hi, and Ten had pretty much been obsessed with Youngho ever since.

“He’s so _tall_ and so _hot_ , Doyoung-ie,” Ten whines at him over a glass of white wine, the bottle open in front of all three of them on the coffee table as they input the grades of their undergraduates into the system. “How have you been keeping him from us? From _me_?”

Doyoung snorts and takes a sip from his own glass, keeping an eye on Kun as his Chinese housemate bangs away on his keyboard in silence. “He’s just a friend, Ten. He doesn’t work at the school or anything. There has been absolutely no occasion to bring him up or introduce him to both of you.”

Ten pouts at him, shoves at Doyoung’s thigh with his own foot and stares dreamily off into the distance for a bit, undergraduate grades forgotten. Youngho owns a photography studio two streets down from the university, specialising mostly in wedding photography and occasionally doing photoshoots for pets. Doyoung had visited him once, to bring him some kimchi stew that he had cooked for lunch, and watched in awe as little kittens nuzzled into Youngho’s palms and climbed all over him as he tried to get them to stay in position for the camera.

“Is he single?”

Ten is watching Doyoung extremely carefully now, eyes sharp and shining with his lips pressed to the rim of the glass. On Doyoung’s other side, Kun has stopped typing, his eyes fixed on one point of his laptop screen.

Doyoung doesn’t know if Youngho is seeing anyone. In all of his lives, Youngho has never mentioned having a lover, despite watching his supposed betrothed fall into the arms of many men and give his heart up to them on a platter. Youngho is attractive though, he reminds himself. Attractive, charismatic, charming, and secure and confident in the way that he holds himself and interacts with the mortals. He is gentle with mortal lives, be it humans or animals, and looks at the pictures that he has taken on his camera with wonder and stars in his eyes. His behaviour is hardly something you would expect from an immortal infamous for his tempers and for enjoying bloodshed, but when Youngho cradles a kitten in his large hands and beams up at Doyoung, Doyoung thinks Youngho is genuinely happy living the guise of a boring mortal life.

He wonders what he should tell Ten, watching Kun out of the corner of his eye as his housemate bites on his lower lip, dark blue hair falling into Kun’s eyes. He thinks about Ten and Youngho together, Ten’s smaller frame pressed up against Youngho’s broader one, Ten’s delicate fingers tracing the scars on Youngho’s face and hand, and something stirs in his stomach as an ugly bitterness rises in the back of his mouth.

“Ask him yourself.”

Ten doesn’t catch the way his voice nearly slips. Kun does though, and he shoots Doyoung a look. Doyoung just ignores it, reaches for his wine to swallow the bitterness down to his stomach where it sits there, queasy and unexplained. Maybe the eggs had gone bad, he thinks, he should have thrown them out and gotten new ones and not made the steamed eggs as a side-dish for dinner. Ten just hums and finally goes back to his screen, pushing up his glasses that had slid down his nose.

“I will then. I’ll text him.”

Doyoung closes his eyes and counts to ten as Kun slams his laptop shut louder than necessary and leaves the room without saying a single word.

-

He invites Youngho to a gallery opening a week later, to Ten’s solo show actually, at TY TRACK Gallery. He watches Youngho walk around and look at Ten’s art in wonder, paint splattered across large canvases and the blown-up digital works that his housemate had spent hours hunched over working on his ipad. He knows that Ten is equal amounts of talented, charismatic, and good-looking, that he works equally hard on everything that he commits himself to. He is happy for Ten honestly, that Ten has managed to get his solo show to open even with the horrid finals marking season and burdensome paperwork that had been weighing them down for two weeks with the end of the semester.

Ten would suit Youngho, he thinks idly, absent-mindedly raising his wine glass to his lips for another sip. They are both beautiful, both charismatic, both extremely sociable and not to mention, they look extremely _good_ together, standing on the other side of the gallery as Ten explains the singular sculptural work in the exhibition to the immortal who listens with rapt attention, eyes fixed on Ten the entire time.

There it is again, that bitterness and queasiness in his stomach from the week before. Doyoung tears his eyes away from Ten and Youngho, pulls out his phone and opens Twitter to scroll mindlessly until someone comes to bother him.

“Is that your boyfriend with Ten?”

Doyoung doesn’t look up from his phone. “He’s not my boyfriend, Taeyong. Besides, Ten is interested in him.”

He knows Taeyong is frowning as the gallery owner leans on the wall beside him. “Huh. I thought Kun and Ten had a thing together, or was that just me being delusional?”

“Who knows,” Doyoung isn’t drunk enough for this conversation. “What Ten wants, Ten usually gets anyways. Right now, what he wants is Johnny.”

Youngho’s chosen human alias still feels weird on his tongue. This isn’t even the first time the immortal has used “Johnny” as a name, but the name still feels foreign coming out of his mouth. When it’s just the two of them, Doyoung still calls him Youngho, and the immortal doesn’t seem to mind that at all, so it has just become like that for now.

Taeyong blinks beside him, and Doyoung wants to shove at him and tell him to shut the fuck up.

“Wait, did Kun just come and kiss Ten?”

“Wait, what?” Doyoung jerks his head up, and yes, his housemates are kissing amidst the applause that is ringing off the walls of Taeyong’s gallery, Ten’s slender fingers fisted in Kun’s blue hair as the other pulls him close with his hands on the artist’s waist. It’s Doyoung’s turn to blink because when the _fuck_ did that happen?

He hears his name being called amongst the din of clapping and catcalling, and Doyoung turns around to see Youngho standing in front of him, one hand hidden behind his back, his freshly dyed red hair falling into his eyes, and Doyoung’s heartbeat stutters unevenly out of time as the immortal smiles at him, all teeth and mischief twinkling in his eyes.

“Wanna get out of here?”

Doyoung lets Youngho take his hand, and easily falls into step beside the god as they run, Youngho’s palm hot against his in the cold of the Amsterdam summer night.

-

They sit on Youngho’s coat spread on the cold pier of Kromhout Wharf, damp still from the light rain that had let up just about an hour ago. Doyoung watches as Youngho uncorks the bottle of wine that he had stolen from the gallery opening with the Swiss Army knife attached to his keys, the god grinning gleefully as he hands the bottle to Doyoung.

“It’s the one you like,” he tells Doyoung as he tries squint at the label in the dark, “remember? From that dinner we had at Zaza’s a few days ago, from when I treated you for finishing your dreary admin duties for your undergraduate classes.

Doyoung takes a sip, and Youngho’s right, he does love this wine. He had spent fifteen minutes singing its praises, high off the lack of sleep and overwork that had plagued him for the past week as Youngho had laughed at him and ordered for the both of them. After that, Youngho had driven him home and walked him to his door, watching Doyoung struggle with his keys before taking them out of his hands and unlocking Doyoung’s door for him instead. Youngho had pulled him back for a bit, hand warm on his shoulder, and looked at Doyoung with that same emotion steeped deep in his dark chocolate eyes, lips slightly parted as if there were words on the tip of his tongue and he wanted to say them before Doyoung closed the door in his face.

There had been the crash of a broken bottle, probably some drunken undergrads celebrating the end of the semester, and the spell had been broken. Youngho had closed his mouth, smiled tenderly at him and handed him off to Kun who had come to the door, telling Doyoung to text him in the morning before he left.

He hands the bottle back to Youngho, who takes a long sip from the opening, his eyes fixed on how Youngho’s lips come away a little wet and dark from being stained by the wine. The artificial light of the docks catches Youngho’s red hair, the scar on his face shining almost silver. Maybe it’s the sweetness of the wine, maybe it’s all the alcohol that Doyoung has consumed on too little food in his stomach, but Youngho looks absolutely _breathtaking_ under the combination of the harsh electric lights of the pier and the soft moonlight that scatters across the smooth surface of the waters in front of them.

“The last time we did this was in Sicily, wasn’t it?” Youngho’s voice is soft, and he is warm against Doyoung’s side. He hands the bottle back to Doyoung, his eyes wandering across the still waters. “Whiskey instead of wine, sand instead of smooth wood, Italy instead of the Netherlands.”

“1945 instead of 2016,” Doyoung murmurs, the wine warming his throat and settling down in a hot sludge in his belly. The queasiness hasn’t left him, only intensifying to a churning as Youngho turns to look at him, soft and tender, lips shiny under the lights. God, had all the food he had been buying bad? Maybe he needs to be more diligent in checking expiration labels instead of just getting what is cheap and good.

“A worse time instead of a better time,” Youngho replies, pressing his shoulder against Doyoung’s as he tilts his head to the side, eyes still locked on Doyoung’s face. There is heat rushing to his cheeks, from the wine probably, and from the rest that he had consumed earlier. Youngho watches him, eyes hooded under his red fringe, hungry and almost bordering on feral, and Doyoung belatedly realises that they are zeroed in on his own lips.

“Youngho,” he blurts out, desperately tamping down the churning in his stomach and trying to do the same with the uneven throbbing in his chest. “Do you know why I want Van Gogh’s _Bedroom in Arles_ so much?”

Youngho’s gaze darts back up to his eyes, but the hungry emotion doesn’t leave his eyes at all. He exhales softly, the corners of his mouth curling up tightly, still shiny and wet from the wine.

“No,” he whispers, and Doyoung is entranced by the curve of his mouth, “but, please, do tell me.”

“You know how Gauguin stayed with him in the Yellow House right,” Doyoung starts, the words tumbling out of his mouth. Call it liquid courage, call it late night inspiration, but he doesn’t know what had made him start and now he can’t fucking _stop_. Youngho nods, watches him take another long draught of the wine before he continues.

“They said that Van Gogh had prepared a guest room for him, but the rumours are that he never sleeps in it at all. You’ve seen the painting, right? Remember, there are two chairs, two pillows, but only _one bed_. Some people, they say that it’s a picture of friendship, of two artists who found comfort in spending time with each other in a room tucked away in a room far away from the hustle and bustle of the city. But to me, it speaks of a room for two lovers, a world of their own away from the prying eyes of the world, a safe haven where only the other exists to them, a space for them to lose themselves in each other and love each other with all their hearts and souls until the sun comes up to remind them of the world that still exists outside.”

Doyoung tears his eyes away from Youngho, unable to look at the inherent hunger lurking in those dark chocolate eyes, stares across at the still calm waters. “It represents the very thing I wanted from my very first life, from the very beginning. From the moment I was told that I was to be betrothed to you.”

“I just wanted someone to share a room with,” his voice is quiet in the emptiness of the night, but his heartbeat is too loud in his ears, Youngho is still too warm by his side. “I wanted to fall in love with someone who loves me back, to have a room, or an apartment with them. To fall into bed with them and wake up to their sleeping face in the morning. To have stupid couple mugs with them and to kiss them on the mouth despite their morning breath. To have two of everything in the house but still share one bed with them and to have them hold my heart in their hands and have a future together with them without this _stupid_ betrothal and all of this reincarnation baggage hanging over my head.”

Doyoung is aware of the tears running down his face, but he doesn’t care anymore. He hasn’t been able to tell anyone this through all the years that he has lived and died again, so getting all of this off his chest is honestly quite _relieving_.

“I’m sorry,” he says into the darkness, unable to look at Youngho in the eye, the god silent and still beside him. “I don’t hate you, Youngho, not anymore. I know it’s not your choice either. But, thank you for listening to me, for coming to check up on me all these years.”

“Doyoung,” Youngho’s voice is deep, choked up with some emotions that Doyoung doesn’t want to decipher, and he sounds like he’s crying too. Doyoung doesn’t want to look, doesn’t want to check, and he squeezes his eyes shut as the churning in his stomach aggravates and the pounding of his heart in his ears swells to a deafening volume.

“Oh, Doyoung,” he hears Youngho murmur in his ears, warm arms wrapping around him.

“I’m sorry,” Youngho says into his hair, holding Doyoung to his chest. “I’m sorry I made all of this happen to you. I should have just said no to that stupid betrothal, I should have resisted more. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Doyoung falls apart in Youngho’s arms and cries freely for the first time in nearly two hundred years as the rain falls down on them and drowns his thundering heart out.

-

“It’s not your fault.”

They are in the living room of Youngho’s high-rise apartment, Doyoung dressed in one of Youngho’s shirts and shorts, hair still damp from the shower. Youngho is shirtless, wearing a pair of ratty sweatpants and plugging a hairdryer into a power outlet.

Youngho sighs heavily, hands him the hairdryer. “You are too kind, Doyoung. But it _is_ my fault.”

“You have a _geis_ placed on you right, with regard to this betrothal, it’s not your fault,” Doyoung doesn’t know why he’s insisting on this. He doesn’t turn on the hairdryer, instead choosing to follow Youngho with his eyes as the god tinkers around in the luxurious kitchen and the electric kettle whistles loudly with the boiling water. “Like you said before, you didn’t have a choice in this instead.”

Youngho sighs again, turns around with two steaming mugs in his hands and sets them on the coffee table. “Yeah, but I should have fought it harder. If not, what good is a God of War for, right? There are things worse than death, but I shouldn’t have been selfish.”

Doyoung blinks. “How are you being selfish, Youngho? You didn’t want this too.”

The smile on Youngho’s face is so sad, it nearly makes Doyoung’s heart stick in his chest.

“I have been selfish, Doyoung. Because I want you to myself. Because I’ve wanted it _so_ badly since the day you chose to step off the cliffs in front of me on the day we were supposed to be wed. So, technically, I want this, actually. I didn’t at first, but I really wanted it since that day. I actually _wanted_ to get to know you, date you, marry you even. But you don’t, and I can’t force you to do that purely because we are betrothed because of my mother’s stupid decisions.”

Doyoung’s heart is stuck in his throat, his lungs choked up with the tangled ball of emotions in his stomach that had begun unraveling the moment Youngho had pulled him into his arms at the pier. He knows the look on Youngho’s face very well, he has seen it on himself in the mirror many times; during the moment he had finished reading the telegram in Paris, the instance when his colleague had declared Jeffrey dead on the operating table, the second that Jungwoo had broken up with him because he thinks Doyoung had gotten “too boring” and “too lenient” in the relationship. The most recent moment, however, was when Taeyong had looked him in the eye after their one-year-anniversary dinner two years ago and told him that he thinks that they are better off being friends rather than lovers.

It’s heartbreak.

Suh Youngho, Johnny, John Seo, Ares, God of War, his immortal betrothed, smiles up at him, his heart in Doyoung’s hands and his eyes shiny with tears.

“I’m in love with you, Doyoung. I told you back then in 1977, remember?”

-

This is how Doyoung ends up in Youngho’s bed, tangled in sheets that smell of smoke and fire, Youngho’s heart in his hands, and thinking about how he had chosen to run away from a fate he has hated since his first life two centuries ago.

Youngho is gone, the apartment empty, telling Doyoung that he has to attend to some godly duties somewhere on the other side of the world. Doyoung is welcome to stay if he wants, he says, as he leaves some ibuprofen on the bedside and ensures that Doyoung gets two glasses of water in him before he leaves. If not, Doyoung is free to go. He doesn’t have to text Youngho or anything, he doesn’t need to let Youngho know.

_“I’m not going to invade your life anymore,” he had murmured, pulling on a shirt and coat as Doyoung watched him from the comfort of his own bed. “I’ll go and settle my duties, and then I’ll go and see my mother about this whole thing. I’ll suffer the aftereffects of the geis if needed to, but I’ll stop this. You won’t have to go through this entire cycle of reincarnating and remembering your past lives anymore. You don’t have to be the bride of the God of War after this is all done. You’ll get to fall in love and share a room, a bed with the love of your life.”_

_Doyoung doesn’t know what had compelled him to speak._

_“Youngho, why now?”_

_Youngho had just smiled back at him, heartbreak written all over his face, and reached out to press something smooth into Doyoung’s hand. He folded Doyoung’s fingers over it, ghosted his fingertips gently over Doyoung’s face before pulling away, smoke and fire fading as he walked towards the door._

_“Some things are beautiful, maybe simply because they are unattainable.”_

Doyoung opens his hands, and watches the blue ribbon spill out of his palm, the bright colour stark against Youngho’s dark red sheets, a perfect contrast. Like him and Youngho he thinks; blue and red, mortal and immortal, stubborn and giving, but both of them equally selfish like how both colours are equally bold. They had both stood against time itself: Doyoung insistent on running away from a fate that he absolutely hated, and Youngho trying desperately to keep someone who did not love him back.

And here they are, Youngho’s heart in Doyoung’s hands. Youngho has given up.

“I don’t want to forget you, Youngho.”

Doyoung says it to the empty room, too big for one person, too bare for someone to sleep in alone. He wonders where Youngho sleeps sometimes, since this apartment is clearly for show. He thinks about all the times the god has come to him in his lives, watched him kiss other men and let other men love him with their hands and their mouths and their bodies. He thinks about that morning in London, Youngho’s face tired and wane against the bright morning sun creeping up behind him and shining through Doyoung’s bedroom window. He thinks about that cold night on the beach in Sicily, Youngho’s smile tight and strange as Doyoung had indirectly thanked him for letting him love Jeffrey. He thinks about that evening where Youngho had reached down to whisper in his ear, the sun shining off his dark red hair as he pulled back and walked out of the cafe and out of that life Doyoung had shared with Jungwoo. He thinks about Youngho, sitting next to him in front of _Bedroom in Arles_ , smiling so softly and looking at Doyoung like he’s the only one worth laying eyes on in the entire world.

Doyoung knows what that emotion is, that emotion that he can’t seem to pinpoint that takes over Youngho’s eyes and shines out of his face every single time he looks at Doyoung.

 _It’s love_ , his memory supplies him. _He’s in love with you._

 _I’m in love with you_.

Youngho is in love with him.

Doyoung is dizzy from the alcohol and the emotions that have clawed their way through his veins and replaced the warmth and comfort from the smoke and fire that he has once found so intimidating. He’s upset, he’s alone in a bedroom that is too bare and in a bed with sheets that smell like Youngho and Youngho is nowhere to be seen. He’s afraid to go to sleep, because if he wakes up, he’s scared that he won’t remember Youngho anymore. That he will wake up in his own bed and walk in on Ten and Kun making out in the kitchen, and that he will go home alone after his classes on Thursday and pop open a bottle of red while watching _Modern Family_ on his laptop and forget who made him try this wine in the first place.

Gods, he doesn’t want to forget Youngho. He wants to remember him, wants to remember the scent of smoke and fire, wants to surround himself with it and sink into the warmth of Youngho’s arms. He wants to remember things from his previous lives, wants to go to the museums with Youngho and point out the guns and plane parts that they had been so familiar with during the time of the Second World War. He wants to discuss essays by Roxanne Gay and Judith Butler with Youngho and talk about how they had nearly gotten their autographs back then on a first-edition copy of their books. He wants to remember everything, wants to remember Youngho, wants to wake up in his next life after his fourteenth birthday and remember Youngho all over again.

 _Oh,_ he blinks at wet spots forming in his lap on Youngho’s red sheets, the blue ribbon lying limply, caught in the downpour of his own tears hot and dripping down his cheeks.

In this lifetime, Youngho is the one that Doyoung has fallen in love with.

-

“You’re awake.”

Youngho doesn’t sound surprised or anything as he hangs up his coat. Doyoung pushes the rice around in the pan, gives it a few tosses with a quick snap of his wrist before setting it down on the stove again. The silence hangs between them, only broken by the sound of the pan sizzling over the fire. Youngho just stands behind the kitchen counter watching him cook, and Doyoung feels the distance between them more than ever as smoke and fire lingers gently behind him, cautious and just out of reach.

“I didn’t sleep,” he turns off the stove and scrapes the fried rice into two bowls, digs around in Youngho’s drawers for some spoons. “I was waiting for you to come back.”

“I know,” Youngho watches him slide the bowl and spoon over to him, watches Doyoung take a seat at his kitchen counter, dressed in his clothes and eating food made out of the leftovers in his fridge and pantry. “I was wondering why you didn’t sleep. You did drink quite a bit.”

“Threw it all up,” Doyoung replies, digging into his portion of fried rice eagerly. “I wanted to be sober, but I also didn’t want to sleep before I saw you again.”

Youngho sits down in front of him, the food untouched. “You should have slept, Doyoung.”

“I didn’t want to,” Doyoung mumbles around the spoon in his mouth, eyes fixed on the spot on the rim of Youngho’s bowl. “I was scared that if I went to sleep, I wouldn’t remember you when I woke up. I didn’t want that, I had to talk to you.”

Youngho sighs, the sound loud in the empty kitchen too big for one person. “You can’t say things like that Doyoung, not when I’m fucking in _love_ with you. Not when I have been for more than _two fucking centuries_. Not when I _know_ that I don’t ever have a chance of you actually falling in love with me for _once_.”

“But I am, Youngho. I am in love with you. I am in love with you _now_.”

Youngho blinks at him, and the silence is deafening in Doyoung’s ears. The god doesn’t speak, and Doyoung puts his spoon down, stares at that one spot on the table and decides to talk before he regrets anything, before Youngho says or _does_ something stupid.

“I don’t want to forget you, Youngho. I don’t want to wake up in my next life and don’t remember a single thing about the previous ones that I have lived. I don’t want to forget about you and your hair colours, black, brown, red, which I still think looks the best on you. I don’t want to forget the times we drank by the sea, I don’t want to forget how you smell like smoke and fire, and I don’t want to fucking wake up and not remember who you are when I see you walking around the museum that I’m visiting.”

“You asked me how I remember you, Youngho, remember? The first time we met in this life, at the Van Gogh Museum. I told you that I remember you as Youngho, and that isn’t a lie. It’s really who you are to me. Not Ares, not God of War, not immortal god that I am betrothed to and have consciously made an effort to run away from in all the four lives that I had lived before this. You’re just Youngho to me. You might be Johnny Seo from America, John Suh who works at the admin department perhaps, but most of the time, you’re Youngho to me.”

“Maybe it’s stupid, and childish even,” Doyoung blinks back the tears that he can definitely feel gathering in his eyes, but he can’t stop. Not now. “But I genuinely _love_ that I am the only one that calls you Youngho. You always introduce yourself as John or Johnny, or John Seo or Suh or whatever variation of the surname that you fancy at that time. But I always call you Youngho.”

“You’re always Youngho to me,” he swallows down the lump in his throat, his hands trembling in his lap and Doyoung doesn’t want to look up at Youngho’s face. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to take it, whatever that he will see on the god’s face. “Like how you said, to you, I’ll always be Doyoung. To me, you’ll always be Youngho. I’ll always remember you as Youngho, and I don’t want to remember otherwise.”

This is it. Now Doyoung’s heart is in Youngho’s hands. The tables have turned.

Doyoung has never felt so afraid being in love before.

The screech of Youngho’s chair is loud against his tiled floors as the god stands up. Doyoung keeps his eyes on the same spot, afraid to look up, afraid to see where Youngho is going, afraid of a heartbreak that he knows he rightly deserves after leaving Youngho’s heart in smithereens over the past four lives and the three lovers that he had so shamelessly claimed in front of Youngho. Youngho, who had been in love with him even before Doyoung had reincarnated into his second life; Youngho, who had just stood by and let Doyoung fall in love with other men and let them love him and his body back; Youngho, who smells of smoke and fire, who is hopelessly enraptured with the drive and motivation that humans fight with against larger systems of oppression and hatred.

Youngho, who holds Doyoung’s heart in his hands now.

“Doyoung.”

Smoke and fire surrounds Doyoung, pulling him closer to the warmth radiating from Youngho. He is standing beside Doyoung’s chair now, and Doyoung can see his hands twitching in his peripheral vision. His name is a whisper, stealing out of Youngho’s lips and settling into the distance between them, a wall built out of their confessions and feelings scattered across a timeline of more than two hundred years, of their shared experiences in Doyoung’s many lives and Youngho’s one very long, very immortal one.

Doyoung has had many names, but he has always liked Doyoung the best. It sounds beautiful, foreign even to his own ears, rolling off Youngho’s tongue, settling comfortably amongst the smoke and fire that wraps around him and warms his veins and nestles in his chest where his heart is.

“Can I kiss you?”

He doesn’t know why Youngho is asking for permission, but he nods anyway. And, _oh_. _Oh_.

Youngho is kissing him.

Doyoung tastes smoke and fire, crowding on his tongue and sliding down his throat like warm brandy, burning, but not consuming, as Youngho cradles his face ever so _gently_ and licks his mouth open. The tendrils of Youngho’s scent snake into his veins and make their home under his skin, prickling and electrifying as he presses closer to Youngho, digs his fingers into dark red hair and pulls. Youngho groans into his mouth, the sound shooting down his spine and going straight to his groin, but Doyoung doesn’t fucking care. He just wants to kiss Youngho _more_ , _more and more_. So he catches Youngho’s lower lip between his tongue, sucks it for a bit before diving back in and sealing their lips together again.

Youngho pulls away gently first, his hand warm around the back of Doyoung’s neck, and Doyoung whines up at him. He just wants to kiss Youngho again, but the god is smiling down at him, eyes crinkled into soft crescents, and he just looks absolutely _handsome_ like this with the tenderness and love shining out of his face and all of it directed at Doyoung.

“I love you, Doyoung,” Youngho murmurs, the four words barely an inch from his lips, and Doyoung’s heart straight-up skips the uneven stuttering and goes right into overdrive, pounding so hard in his ears and in his chest that it almost _hurts_. But Youngho is smiling at him, love in his eyes and tenderness in the way that he holds Doyoung and adoration in the smoke and fire that wraps around Doyoung’s very being and whispers an unspoken promise to protect, to cherish, to _love_ into Doyoung’s skin.

“I love _you_ , Youngho.”

To that, Youngho smiles wider, and leans down to kiss him again.

-

_“What is the geis? Are you allowed to tell me about it?”_

_Youngho shifts to wrap one arm around Doyoung’s naked waist, pressing soft kisses against the marks made by his teeth earlier in their throes of passion. He hums into Doyoung’s throat and Doyoung just waits, carding his fingers through the soft crimson locks under his chin._

_“I guess I’m allowed to tell you the consequences I guess. It’s not being able to fall in love ever again, if I told you about why you are betrothed to me, and vice versa.”_

_Doyoung frowns. “And to you, that’s worse than death.”_

_“It is.” Youngho presses his lips against Doyoung’s pulse, his fingers stilling around his lover’s waist. “To me, it is. It also meant that I would not have any feelings for you whatsoever, regardless of how hard I had fallen for you in the first place. I don’t want that at all. I don’t want to ever forget the emotions that I feel for you.”_

_Doyoung doesn’t have anything to say to that. Youngho sits up in bed, reaches for the blue ribbon on the bedside table and gestures for Doyoung to give him his wrist._

_“Remember what you quoted from Hemingway?” Youngho ties the blue fabric around his wrist, directly over his pulse, and Doyoung can’t take his eyes off the scar on his right hand as usual. “What was it? Ah. ‘I guess, everything reminds you of something’, right?”_

_Doyoung nods. Youngho finishes the perfect bow, stares at it fondly for a bit before looking up to meet his eyes. “To me, blue reminds me of you. Specifically, blue ribbons, always on your wrist. Takes me back to the day you looked me in the eye and asked me if I wanted a human bride, a human male bride specifically. You were beautiful, even back then at barely sixteen years old, dressed in white with lilies in your hands and the blue ribbon around your wrist. You were so smart, so strong, so determined to challenge your fate regardless of the death that you knew awaited you with your plan.”_

_Youngho traces the edge of the ribbon with his finger, eyes wistful and lost in the past for a bit, but Doyoung lets him be. “I am drawn to drive and determination and the desire to make a change, I told you before, remember? In that coffee shop on campus in Chicago. That was what drew me to you, watching you still study scrolls in your free time and collect herbs for the village despite being told that you should give up on all those things because you were betrothed to a god. You didn’t want to submit, you wanted to still fight, and you fought to the very end.”_

_“That day, I was ready to to get married, even after all those years of resisting as hard as you did,” he looks up at Doyoung, and Doyoung instinctively tangles their fingers together, thumb running over the jagged scar that splits Youngho’s palm in half and curves across the back of his hand. “I thought to myself, ah, if it was getting married to this one mortal who fights within an inch of his life with his teeth sunk so hard into his lip, but refusing to give up to the end even if it hurts and bleeds. If it is this mortal, Kim Doyoung, that I’m having my stupid immortal life being bound to, I don’t think I’d mind it at all.”_

_Doyoung reaches up to pull Youngho down into a kiss, savors the smoke and fire he tastes in the immortal’s mouth before he pulls away and presses one soft chaste kiss against Youngho’s lips. His heart is beating so loudly in his ears, but he’s pretty sure that he hears Youngho’s too, their naked chests pressed together as Youngho seeks his lips again, eyes barely open from a mix of exhaustion and pleasure._

_“I think,” he says against Youngho’s lips, glimpsing the blue fluttering from his wrist out of the corner of his eye. “I wouldn’t mind it at all either. Having my stupid mortal life bound to this stupid immortal god who is in bed with me and is apparently in love with me too.”_

_Youngho grins against his mouth, kisses him again._

_“It’s not so bad, isn’t it?”_

_Yeah, Doyoung thinks, as he gives into the sleep tugging down his eyelids, sinking into warmth and smoke and fire. Not bad. Not bad at all._

-

Doyoung is thirty-two when he gets married for the first time in all of his lives.

“I can’t believe Johnny proposed to you with just a stupid blue ribbon,” Ten grumbles, watching Doyoung check his reflection in the mirror. He’s wearing said blue ribbon around his neck, pressed carefully and tied neatly around the collar of his dress shirt. Doyoung smooths out some phantom wrinkles in his suit, checks his hair one last time, and turns around to stare at Ten who is lounging on the couch with a martini in his hand.

“It’s special to us, to him,” he replies, nerves pooling in his his stomach as he fingers the ends of the blue ribbon. On the loveseat beside the couch, Kun sighs and pockets his phone before holding a hand out to his husband.

“Come on, Ten, let’s go. The ceremony is starting soon. And stop judging Johnny because he didn’t have an engagement ring. You know he can easily afford something like that, even without the ridiculous amount that Doyoung is being paid by SNU so that they can keep him there in their Art History Department.”

Ten pouts, but lets his husband pull him to his feet and steals a kiss from Kun before turning to look at Doyoung again. “Lucky bastard, I say. If you had proposed to me with something stupid like that, I wouldn’t have said yes to you.”

“You would have,” Doyoung fires back, rolling his eyes because it _is_ the truth. Kun could have proposed with a ring made out of the stray thread of his shirt, and Ten would have said yes because that is just how Ten is. He is still head over heels for Kun, two years into their marriage, and Kun still looks at Ten the same way back then when they were PhD students consistently either drunk on alcohol or high from caffeine overdose. There had been no between, and Doyoung misses some of those days in Amsterdam sometimes, but now he is paid a good six figures here in Seoul and actually has a decent sleeping schedule, so there’s nothing to complain about.

Ten rolls his eyes back at him, untangles his fingers from his husband’s to adjust the ribbon around Doyoung’s neck and slap his fingers away from it.

“There you go, don’t touch it.”

Doyoung grins at his best friends, holds out his arms. “How do I look?”

“Ready to get married.” Kun’s smile is fond and Ten’s eyes are wet. “Let’s go now, Doyoung-ie.”

Doyoung breathes, lets his best friends guide him out of the room and to his soon-to-be husband waiting in front of his family and the officiator standing in front of the arch that Ten had insisted on having. _You’re not having a big wedding, Doyoung-ie, and I know you don’t like elaborate things, but you gotta get married under a balloon arch of white balloons at least_.

This ceremony is nothing like the first one, Doyoung thinks, as Youngho kisses him in front of the cheers of the small crowd gathered to witness their matrimony. There are no priests, his family isn’t stony-faced, and Youngho is dressed in a matching white suit but with a red ribbon around his collar. Doyoung isn’t skinny and small, and Youngho isn’t standing too far away from him, and all of this is taking place in their living room instead of on a cliff.

“Hey, husband,” he whispers against Youngho’s lips as they break apart. Youngho is breathtakingly handsome, cheeks flushed from the kiss they just shared, smoke and fire surrounding the both of them and Doyoung is so _happy_ he thinks his heart will burst just from the way Youngho is looking at him, grin stretching his face so wide and just _so handsome_.

“Hey to you too, husband.”

-

“What is this?”

Youngho is unfazed by Doyoung’s tone. Instead, he just pops the cork off the wine bottle and hands it to his husband. “Wine?”

“Why thank you,” Doyoung snatches the bottle away, relishes the sweetness that lingers on his tongue after a long sip. “But it doesn’t explain _that_.”

“ _That_ , is a projection of Vincent van Gogh’s 1888 painting, _Bedroom of Arles_ , on our wall. The first edition ever painted, now on display in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.” Youngho explains pointedly, slowly even, like he is explaining something to a child and not to an Associate Professor teaching Post-Impressionism and Modern Art at Seoul National University. Doyoung just stares at him, jerking the wine bottle out of Youngho’s reach as his husband reaches for it.

“You used our home projector for this?”

“Why not?” Youngho pouts, and Doyoung is torn between kissing that stupid expression off his face or slapping it off. He settles for climbing into bed beside his husband, still deliberately keeping the wine out of Youngho’s hand even though he knows that Youngho can easily summon it into his hands without having to speak a word. Doyoung stares at the projected image on their bedroom wall, and the complaints that he has worked up in his head just dies in his throat.

“You remembered.”

Youngho hums, arms wrapping loosely around Doyoung’s waist, nosing into his neck. “Of course I do. I would actually get the physical thing for you, you know, God of War and all that bullcrap. But I know how much you hate me spending money on art that should be displayed to the public.”

“And I thank you for remembering that too,” Doyoung taps Youngho’s cheek fondly, eyes moving across the colours in the projection of a painting. _This is not a pipe_ , he remembers Magritte, and he almost laughs at how much technology has developed. _This is a projection of a digital image captured of the original painting in Amsterdam_ , he thinks, _projected on the wall of the bedroom I share with my husband here in Seoul_.

“Do you like it?” Youngho murmurs into his throat, fingers tracing patterns across Doyoung’s stomach idly and not going any lower. Doyoung looks away from the projection on his wall and takes in the bedroom around them with his eyes.

He sees the two dressers on each side of the bed, identical in their design, but littered with different objects. He sees Youngho’s watch, the Swiss Army knife attached to his keys, the black coffee mug half-filled with water; his own matching watch, Takashi Murakami keychain on his own keys, white coffee mug filled with tea shoved haphazardly against the huge spine of a book on Japonism that he was attempting to read through for his latest research. Everything is the same, but different; where there is him, there is Youngho.

Youngho shifts beside him, nips at his pulse, teeth sharp and breath warm against the column of his throat. “Baby, did you get lost in your head again?”

Doyoung thinks of the two toothbrushes in the bathroom, the way that their sheets and curtains alternate between blue and red, two sets of cutlery and dishes sitting on the drying rack in the kitchen. He slips his fingers through Youngho’s, eyes fixed on the way that their rings line up, one blue sapphire sitting snugly beside one red ruby in the middle of a silver mobius strip, and leans down to kiss his immortal husband fondly.

“A little,” he murmurs into Youngho’s mouth. “Just a little.”

Youngho kisses him back languidly, but pulls away a bit too soon for Doyoung’s liking. “You didn’t answer my question, Doyoung.”

Doyoung snorts, and reaches for the projector remote lying beside them, unwilling to let their entwined hands go. Youngho watches him fumble around, click the off button before he turns around and pushes his husband against the headboard. Doyoung settles himself into Youngho’s lap, watches the god raise his eyebrows at him before he surges forward and kisses Youngho again, his heart burning in his chest and his head dizzy with affection and love and the unspoken promises of forever.

“Yeah, but I don’t need it anymore. Why would I want a painting when I already have the real thing?”

Youngho just clasps his hand tighter and smiles against his mouth.

-

_“Can you marry me with these same rings in my next life?”_

_Youngho snorts at him, eyes still fixed on the laptop of his screen where he’s editing concept photos of some upcoming boy group that is slated to debut. “You say that like you will marry me willingly in your next life.”_

_“Why not?” Doyoung buries his face in Youngho’s hair, breathes in warm fire and smoke. “I do retain my memories, you know, I’m pretty sure that I’ll remember how I fell in love with you by the time I turn fourteen. That’s how it goes, so just make sure you find me before I turn forty or something. I wanna get married before that.”_

_Youngho sighs as Doyoung wraps himself around his back. “I’m sure the rings will survive the test of time with careful maintenance, don’t worry. You like them that much, huh?”_

_Doyoung nods and closes his eyes, the room silent except for the clack of Youngho’s keyboard._

_“Doyoung. I was serious, you know, what if you decide that you don’t want to marry me in your next life? What if you meet someone else?”_

_Doyoung snorts and reaches out to slam Youngho’s laptop shut, setting it on his bedside table before pulling him towards the mountain of pillows on their bed. Youngho’s mouth is warm and wet and Doyoung lets his immortal husband kiss him until he’s dizzy and breathless. He cards a hand through Youngho’s dark red locks as the god stares down at him, dark brown eyes fixed on his lips, and smiles cheekily up at the God of War shirtless in his bed._

_“Make sure that I’ll fall for you again, then propose to me. There, problem solved.”_

_Spending all your lives with a predestined soulmate, an immortal God of War at that, might not be as bad as Doyoung had thought initially. He’s in love with his betrothed, he knows that, his chest tight and warm in the best way he knows as Youngho throws his head back and laughs._

_Kim Doyoung is thirty-five when he believes he can share a bedroom with Youngho forever._

**Author's Note:**

> (ノ*°▽°*) 
> 
> comments and kudos are very _very_ appreciated! thank you for making through all 30k words of this!
> 
> if you wonder how [van gogh's bedroom in arles](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/Vincent_van_Gogh_-_De_slaapkamer_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/1024px-Vincent_van_Gogh_-_De_slaapkamer_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg) looks like
> 
> [twt](http://twitter.com/doiebeams) // [cc](https://curiouscat.me/doiebeams)


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